HOLLAND 



INSTITUTIONS; ITS PRESS, KINGS, 
AND PRISONS. . 



BY 

E. MEETEK. 



LONDON: 

J. F. HOPE. GEEAT MAELBOEOUGH STEEET 

MDCCCLYII. 



PEEFACE. 



I beg to dedicate this work to the British 
public, to the inhabitants of the United 
Kingdom, and my sincere wish is that it may 
be received as a homage to this country, and 
as an expression of my warmest thanks to 
the loyal possessors of these shores of freedom 
and greatness, where the victim of conti- 
nental persecution finds shelter and liberty. 
The gratitude I continually bear with me, is 
at least adequate to my profound conviction. 



iy 



PREFACE. 



that had it not been for the free institutions 
of England, and its proximity to the conti- 
nent, the hand that pens these lines "would 
now have been powerless. At the same 
time. I make the humble pretension of doing 
no bad service to the land of my temporary 
adoption by publishing this work, The facts 
I bring to light will spread useful informa- 
tion throughout these isles, as to the real 
state of things on the continent. It is true 
this work treats specially about Holland, but 

At/ / 

Holland is nothing but a sample of the 
greater number of the continental states and 
courts. 

All the facts related and the circumstances 
mentioned are conscientiously put down. 
They may cause the righteous and the friend 
of humanity to shudder with horror ; never- 
theless, although I may, perhaps, have made 
errors as regards a few dates, all that I have 
said is true to the letter. If one asks how 



PREFACE. 



T 



it is that, until this moment, such atrocities 
were never reported of Holland, the reply 
is, that every author on the continent, who 
will not sink under the level of his own 
estimation, and will continue to write, 
has no other prospect than an early grave. 

Xothing would more satisfy my ardent 
wishes than that this work should convince 
the British nation that her interfering in 
favour of pending republican movements is 
to her own interest as well as to that of hu- 
manity. The revolution of 1848 failed in 
France on account of its leadership being 
principally in the hands of Utopians and 
weak-hearted poets, instead of sober, patri- 
otic, and practical men, who low regret that 
they, stood aloof when that great event hap- 
pened. But the same cannot be said of the 
Eoman republic, whose nuble leaders very 
probably would not have succumbed if Eng- 
land had interfered in their behalf. JSeither 



yi 



PREFACE. 



would the heroes of Hungary, or of other 
smaller states that rose during the memo- 
rable year 1848. 

Should tyranny be allowed oyer and oyer 
again to put her rough- shod foot upon 
liberty's breast, the latter would at last suc- 
cumb; and when continental despotism found 
no longer any motiye to seek an alliance 
with England, the enslayed old world would 
soon stand against her, and, if not assisted by 
the jealous kinsmen on the other side of the 
Atlantic, try to let her share the fate of 
Carthage. Bear in mind, eyery abortive new 
republican revolution will bring us nearer to 
absolute universal despotism. 

Speaking of the civilized European family 
in general, we may say that we have now 
arrived at the landmark, black as night on 
the one, hopeful as daylight on the other 
side, — the landmark indicating the limit 



PREFACE. 



between slavery and liberty ; and it is now 
high time that we must either cross the 
barrier or recede. It must be decided whe- 
ther we are to be our own masters, or whether 
we shall be kept in degrading servitude by a 
handful of tyrants, the descendants of fortu- 
nate adventurers, chiefly belonging to that 
age of darkness and barbarism upon which 
every feeling man looks back with abhorrence 
and shame. We must know whether we 
will allow them to keep humanity in thraldom, 
and to place themselves between God and 
us. "We must duly consider whether we 
are so deeply sunk, whether we are so base, 
as longer to endure these exuberations of 
society, and to sacrifice to them everything 
which distinguishes us from brutes — liberty 
of thought, speech, and action. 

If, in the present state of human progress, 
whilst we have steam to convey our persons, 



yiii 



PREFACE. 



with flying speed, from place to place ; with 
electricity to convey our communications with 
the quickness of lightning to any distance ; — 
if, in our age of scientific development and 
of philosophical enlightenment, tyranny could 
boldly keep up its monstrous head — adieu, 
then, liberty of mankind, for ever adieu ! 

I will not here dwell any longer upon 
this important subject, much less so as I do 
not believe that such will or can be the fate 
of humanity ; but I shall hereafter have a 
more fitting occasion fully to explain my 
opinions hereon. 

Let me only add that I trust the want of 
grace and richness of language in the fol- 
lowing pages, will be overlooked on account 
of my I eing a foreigner. Although acquainted 
with the English tongue, I sorely feel that I 
have not that easiness of habitude which 
suggests words to every idea as soon as con- 



PREFACE. 



ix 



ceiyed. I am convinced, however, that I 
am gaining strength, and I make bold to 
think that in the next volume my lack of 
elegance and harmony of style will be found 
less conspicuous than in this first production. 

I am indebted to my friend Mr. W. 
A. W. Bird, for his ready assistance in 
revising this work, which I have the plea- 
sure of hereby publicly acknowledging. 



Erratum. 

Page 1, Contents of Chapter,/or 1839. read 1837. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

King Willem I. visits Groningen in 1837. — His 
appearance suggests the idea of the publication 
of a Republican Newspaper, Be Tolk der 
Vryheid - - - - 1 



CHAPTER II. 

Policy of Willem I. — Protestants and Catholics. — 
Growing dissatisfaction in Holland. — The 
King loses his popularity. — The Countess 
Henriette D'Oultremont - - - 12 



xii 



CONTEXTS. 



CHAPTER III 

PAGE 

Jonker R. L. Yan Andringa de Kempenaer. — The 
Prince of Orange a dangerous conspirator 
against his father. — The Handeslblad, 
Arnhemsche Courant, Xoord Brabander, 
and Vlissingsche Courant, — Suicide of the 
Editor, Yan der Biezen - - -23 

CHAPTER IY. 

General System of the Government of Y^illem I. 
— Taxation. — J ustice. — Secret Police. — The 
Press - - - - - 35 

CHAPTER Y. 

Ludicrous Scenes in a Wafelkraam. — Uproar in 
Groningen. — Arrest and Preventive Imprison- 
ment. — Suicide of Lieutenant-Colonel Eranck. 
— The Dutch Army and jSTavy - -52 

CHAPTER YI. 

A Drama composed in a Prison- Cell. — Sufferings 
in Gaol. — Prosecutions against the Tolls der 
Vryheid. — Its Editor liberated - - 76 



CONTENTS. 



xiii 



CHAPTEE TIL 

PAGE 

Major Van Baerle. — Plan of a Revolution and 
Overthrow of the Dynasty of Orange-Xassau. 
— Belgian Xevrspapers. — Eeckma, Zielker, 
and Rienks, Collaborateurs to the Tolk. — Its 
Editor sentenced to Eive Tears' Imprison- 
ment. — Jan Bolt, the publisher - - 98 

CHAPTER Till. 

Further proceedings against the Tolk, — Abdication 
of Willem I. as King of Xetherland. — Retro- 
spective View of his Reign. — Holland and 
Belgium and their Populations. — The Prince 
of Orange ascends the Throne as "Willem II. — 
My Expatriation to Paris - - - 119 

CHAPTER IX. 

General Baron Fagel, Minister Plenipotentiary of 
Holland at the Tuileries. — I am condemned 
to Ten Years' Imprisonment, but employed 
at the Dutch Embassy instead.-— Embassies 
and Consulates in General. — Paris. — My 
return to Holland. — Murderous Attack on the 
Frontiers - - - - - 142 



xiy 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEE X. 

PAGE 

"Willem II. ; his apparent kindness.-— IT. Eochus- 
sen; his reception of the Author. — M. Yan 
Hall. — Willem' s regard for Belgium ; his 
popularity.- — Louis Philippe's policy. — Prin- 
cess Marianne.- — Tan Eappard - - 168 



CHAPTEE XI. 



Schemers of Financial Measures on the Continent. 
—Diet and Health of "Willem II.— His Parsi- 
mony and his Lavishness. — My Yisit to the 
Minister- Oculist, Kremer, in Heeze. — My 
Doings in that Tillage. — Cornelia Togel - 194 



CHAPTEE XII. 



Description of the Hague. — Its Inhabitants and its 
Manners.— My depending upon the King's 
Gratuities against my Peelings. — Eupture 
with Tan Eappard and the Court. — Eeturn 
to Groningen - 222 



CONTENTS. 



XT 



CHAPTER XIII. 

PAGE 

The Printer of the Tali der Vryheid, Bolt, breaks 
up his establishment in Groningen, and I com- 
mence to publish with him the Onafkankelyke 
in Amsterdam. — Prosecutions against the 
OnafhankelyJce. — Bolt's transactions with the 
Government. — I return to Paris. — Death of 
Willem I. - - - - - 246 



CHAPTER XIY. 

Baron Eagel again. — I publish a Republican Paper 
in the Hague, called The Ooyevaar. — Afy Cor- 
respondents. — Extensive Circulation. — Prose- 
cution. — The Horrid Secret between Petrus 
Jansen and "Willem II. silenced for Six lEonths 
with 15,000 Guilders — The Contra- Ooyevaar 
— Tetroode and the Ooyemoer — De Haas — 
Tan Gorcum - - - - 278 



CHAPTER XV. 

Position of Willem II.— DeThouars— The Haagsche 
Miniatuur Nieuwsiode. — The Ontwaakte 
Leeuw. — Riots in Amsterdam, Haerlem, 
Ley den, the Hague, and Delft. — Prosecu- 



xvi 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

tions. — Afy two printers and I in prison, and 
the Presses gagged. — My former Collabora- 
teurs accused. — Dreadful sufferings. — ~Kj 
lucubrations. — How continental tyranny 
martyrizes its victims - -318 



HOLLAND. 



CHAPTER I. 

King Willem I. visits Groningen in 1839. — His appear- 
ance suggests the idea of the publication of a Repub- 
lican Newspaper, "De Tolk der Vryheid." 

It was in the summer of 1837 that the 
Dutch king, Willem L, made a tour through 
the northern provinces of Holland. On that 
occasion, an immense crowd were assembled 
in the principal streets and in the market- 
places of Groningen, the chief town of the 
province of that name, through which the 
aged king had to pass, waiting to see their 
monarch, but more anxious, perhaps, to 
obtain a view of his pompous equipment and 
retinue. 

B 



2 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

I stood amongst the cluster of the many 
thousand faces, for the greater part radiant 
with joy, but I had little consciousness of 
the demonstrations of excitement and glee 
that surrounded me on every side. I wag 
absorbed in other reflections, not originating 
in the rays of pageantry, but emanating from 
the most intrinsic emotions. 

Born in Holland, I had voluntarily en- 
listed, like many other young men and chil- 
dren, during the war between the north and 
the south Netherlands, in the Dutch army ; 
and at the age of eighteen was appointed a 
non-commissioned officer and chef de bureau ; 
which office, at the time I am speaking of, 
I had held nearly a year — in addition 
to which I was prepared to pass my exam- 
ination for a lieutenancy. ^lanifold and 
variated were my occupations and duties in 
my military career ; but I never neglected 
my private studies and meditations. Fond 
of philosophy, literature, poetry, history, and 
geography, I devoted all my leisure moments 
to the cultivation of my mind, through these 
intellectual sources. Nor were my endea- 



ITS PKESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 



3 



yours to excel others altogether unattended 
with success, for different fragments of my 
poetical attempts, and, at a later period, 
several of my historical pamphlets and 
sketches, had already issued from the 
presses in Groningen. 

Conscientious and assiduous investigations 
into the historical records of my country, had 
long since imbued me with the conviction 
that the Dutch Eepublic was, in recent by- 
gone centuries, as glorious, renowned, and 
respected throughout the world, as Holland 
is now, — in miniature tyrannical form, — an 
insignificant spot on the map of Europe, of 
which foreigners seldom speak, but, when 
they do, generally with disdain and con- 
tempt. And the same impartial researches 
fortified me in the opinion that Orange- 
Xassau, the reigning House of Holland, 
especially from the time its members became 
hereditary stadtholders of the United Pro- 
vinces, had ever been the cause of that 
decadencv. 

As King Willem passed the crowd, he 
distinguished me at once ; and very natu- 

b 2 



i 



HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ' 



rally so, for I was the onlv one in uniform 
amongst that large mass of Chilians. I 
stood motionless, gazing intensely on his 
features, whilst the crowd bowed, waved 
their hats, and cried "vivat." Meanwhile 
I pitied the poor deluded people. Ever 
since, thought I, the laws of human nature 
— pure as they sprang from the Creator's 
hands — were engulphed in the pristine de- 
luge of human defeneration, liberty and 
equality were no longer looked upon as 
Heaven's dearest gifts, and the equilibrium 
of individual value fell into the grasp of 
bold and successful usurpers of their fellow- 
creatures' rights, — ever since that time ty- 
rants have tried to succeed, by external pomp 
and show, in subjugating the nations, and 
keeping them in degrading thraldom. Sad 
to say, outward ornaments and ceremonies, 
although ridiculous, insidious and abject, 
when put in the bright lidit of common 
sense and reason, have had, in different ages, 
more influence upon the destinies of man- 
kind, than all the sublime superiority of 
solid learning and unpretending wisdom. 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AXD PRISONS. 5 



Look we back on disappeared generations, 
and we find in many instances sensual agita- 
tions which brutes partake in common with 
men, overruling the higher sentiments which 
the latter share with the Immortal Beings. 

The Indians have no more respect for 
their native woods than any other nation or 
tribe, but when they have succeeded in 
shaping a tree into the semblance of a mon- 
ster, which they have seen perhaps in their 
dreams, they adore, deify, and bestow godly 
honours upon it. Just like these savages, 
other nations, or rather faithful subjects, 
never prostrate before a despot in his natural 
state or in his night-cap and slippers, but 
only when clad in lace, gold, and finery, 
trimmed up as a fancy-god by tailors, boot- 
makers, hatters, laundresses, hair dyers, &c. ; 
which sort of useful people were never the 
last to admire, with open mouth, full of as- 
tonishment and awe, the production of their 
combined hands. 

Objects, only by intervals exposed to 
human sight, attract an ephemeral attention 
and excite an interest which, in the eve of 



c 



HOLLAND : ITS IXSTTIXTIOXS J 



the vulgar, yanish.es when they are daily 
visible. Comets, making their appearance 
but once in the course of two or three cen- 
turies, attract that general attention to the 
endless spheres, which is never given by the 
multitude to the suns and planets, constantly 
shining through the orbits of the heavenly 
vaults. In some parts of Europe religious 
superstition and awe is fostered upon that 
principle, and political superstition is, in 
like manner, strengthened by throwing round 
a continental tyrant a nimbus of mystery 
and impenetrability.* As regards TTillem, 
although Holland counts not many hundreds 
of thousands of inhabitants more than London 

• Regarding religious superstition, is it not degrading 
for mankind that in our age exhibitions like the " holy 
coat of Treves," and a thousand others of a similar kind 
take place, and that the vulgar are induced and allured 
to believe in the greatest absurdities, offensive to all 
sound reason and common sense ? The coat of Treves, 
in Prussia, is exhibited every seven years, and the 
gnawing teeth of Time cannot alter it in the slightest 
degree. The priests boldly assert that Jesus Christ 
wore the very same coat. Other European towns make 
similar pious pretensions. The one fabrication is worthy 
the other. As for political superstition, there figures in 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 7 



alone, lie occupied for this personal exhibi- 
tion in the provinces of his realm, an interval 
of at least seven or eight years, but then 
made his appearance somewhat like a comet, 
with great pomp, and followed by a long 
suite. 

"Willem I. left Groningen highly satisfied 
with the brilliant reception he had received. 
Nobody could foresee that the object of that 
splendid ovation would, only three years 
afterwards, find himself in the alternative 
either to risk the crown of North-Nether- 
land, or to abdicate and to leave his country, 
loaded with the curses of his subjects ! 
North-Netherland was for Willem in 1837 

close connection with the system of official personal 
exhibitions of royalty in our days the ridiculous custom 
of continental crowned heads, when travelling as 
simple mortals. They then cast off their pageantry, 
and leaving "the grace of God" at home, assume 
the character of a Duke, a Marquis, an Earl, a 
Viscount, a Baron, or something like it. That they 
call their incognito, although everybody knows who they 
are. The example is taken from the late old Jupiter, 
who, more expert and less self-conceited than they are, 
went incognito by the name of Master Taurus, and put- 
ting on the exterior of a bull, eloped with the fair Europa* 



8 



HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



what Belgium was for him eight years pre- 
viously. No Prince could desire an appar- 
ently more enthusiastic reception than the 
King of the Netherlands met with, in the 
southern parts of his dominions, in 1829, — 
a year before the Belgian revolution. This 
is a fact illustrative of the truth, that public 
demonstrations of joy and attachment to the 
heads of despotic or semi-despotic govern- 
ments, are no longer symptoms of their 
solidity or durability. And it must be 
gratifying to the philosopher and to the 
friend of his species, to observe that those 
exhibitions have not now the lasting effect 
as in days of yore, and continue to lose their 
prestige in the same degree as civilization, 
learning, and enlightenment are progressing. 
The true force of every government of rea- 
soning nations, without a single exception, 
now depends upon the opinions of highly- 
cultivated and virtuous persons, whose pre- 
eminence and talent, whose pen and tongue, 
have a stronger influence on the minds of 
their fellow-citizens than all the showmen in 
the world — from the beggar to the prince — 



ITS PRESS, KENGS, AXD PRISONS. 9 

can produce. The vague exultations of the 
multitude are ephemeric as meteors ; opin- 
ions based upon truth possess, in our days, 
eternal vitality, and before these opinions 
every contrast must, sooner or later, give 
way. 

It was with this conviction that I left the 
spot where the king had passed, and slowly 
returned home, long after the crowd had 
ceased to rend the air with their acclamations. 
I had never seen a king before, and my wit- 
nessing King "Willem's reception suggested 
to me, for the first time, the idea of putting 
myself at the head of a republican newspaper. 
I did not, however, arrive at the determina- 
tion to publish that journal, without having 
first calmly and judiciously deliberated whe- 
ther my political writings could be useful 
and effective, and, such being the case, 
whether it was not my duty to forego all 
personal considerations, and to submit to my 
countrymen, according to the best of my 
abilities, the fruits of my researches, medita- 
tions, and opinions. I was fully aware of 
the harassing prosecutions to which I should 



10 HOLLAND I ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

be exposed, in writing a newspaper of repub- 
lican tendencies, by the government of King 
Willem I. I was also alive to the fact that I 
had even to expect the cavil and annoyance 
of the local authorities, whose actions were 
not belonging to the domain of public dis- 
cussion ; for never during the lengthened 
reign of Willem had an independent 
journal made its appearance in Groningen. 
The two small newspapers published twice 
a-week in that university-town were both 
dependent ; — one the Groninger G our ant ^ 
upon the authorities of the city ; the other, 
the Provinciate Groninger C our ant, upon 
those of the province or county, and lead- 
ing articles reflecting upon the acts of the 
government or administration, even if these 
acts concerned the dearest interests of 
the country, the province, or of the town, 
were altogether unknown in these publica- 
tions. What a sensation, therefore, must 
the production of a free, independent, re- 
publican newspaper make in Groningen ; 
and how would it be looked upon by the 
creatures of servility ! But after I had once 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 11 

come to a firm determination, no fear of 
future vexations or danger could restrain 
me ; and the happy and flattering thought 
that I might be useful to my fellow-citizens, 
banished all other considerations from my 
mind. I applied, in the summer of 1839, 
for my release from the army, which I easily 
obtained, peace having been made with Bel- 
gium, and nobody being aware of my jour- 
nalistic intentions. The name I gave to my 
newspaper was sufficiently characteristic : I 
headed it, The Talk der Vryheid, which 
means in English, The Interpreter of Liberty. 



12 HOLLAND : US INSTITUTIONS J 



CHAPTER II. 

Policy of "Willem I. — Protestants and Catholics. — 
Growing dissatisfaction in Holland. — The King loses 
his popularity. — The Countess Henriette D'Oul- 
tremont. 

A specimen impression of the Tolk der 
Vryheid was published in the latter part of 
the year 1839, and was, so far as I could 
gather, well received by the public, especially 
in Groningen and its environs. The news- 
paper was of small size, resembling nearly 
all continental journals. It was to be pub- 
lished regularly three times a-week. I had 
a few thousand copies printed, and took them 
with me to the principal places of the different 
provinces, not only in order to canvass for 
subscribers, but also with the intention of 
procuring all the information possible as to 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 13 

the disposition of the population, and their 
dissatisfaction to the government, and par- 
ticularly the king, who was considered the 
personification of that government. 

I soon ascertained that the majority of 
the people were discontented, and that in 
some places their minds were in a state of 
fermentation. The more enlightened con- 
demned in extenso the policy of Willem I., 
who, since he had ruled as king, had cared 
only for his private concerns, and, instead of 
following the path of progress, had endea- 
voured to bring the nation back to former 
times of intellectual, religious, and political 
darkness and discord. In fact, one of Wil- 
lem' s political maxims was that of De 
Medicis: — Divide et impera. He applied it 
assiduously and unrelentingly to the two 
principal religions or sects in the Nether- 
lands — the Protestants and the Eoman Ca- 
tholics. That sort of tortuous policy, and 
the scandalous persecutions the courageous 
representatives of the press had to endure 
during his reign, brought him his just re- 
ward, forming as it did the embryo of the 



14 HOLLAND: ITS INSTITUTIONS \ 

rebellion which made Belgium independent 
of his tyrannical sway. A circumstance in- 
dicative of Willem's love of money may not 
here be out of place. He lost, by losing 
Belgium, about two-thirds of his subjects. 
As king of the Netherlands, he had a salary 
(for why not call it salary?) of two and a 
half millions of guilders, and after he had 
been deprived of the better and greater por- 
tion of his kingdom, he generously proposed 
that his salary should be reduced, not to the 
proportional number of the population, but 
to one million and a half ! After all, how- 
ever, it was of no material difference whether 
his salary was more or less, as he had at all 
times the national treasure at his disposal, 
which made it easy enough for him to gather 
a colossal fortune, as hereafter will be seen. 
His yearly budgets of public income and ex- 
penditure were nothing but a royal sham. 
His ministers were his clerks, and nothing 
better. He had the supreme command over 
all departments, and bartered with the public 
revenue according to the dictation of his Ion 
plaisir. It was a long time since known 
that his secret agents speculated, on their 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 15 

master's account, in the Amsterdam Ex- 
change, and gained all important intelli- 
gences — affecting the public funds — of which 
he came into earlier possession than private 
individuals ; and he even speculated upon 
them, when these pieces of intelligence con- 
veyed the news of national disasters. At 
the same time that, in the campaign of 1831, 
the Dutch soldier poured his blood, and two 
years afterwards the embargo brought so 
many a family to despair, the pater patrice, 
as his mercenary scribes were wont to call 
him, had occult representatives on the Beurs, 
and the scalding tears and the uselessly-shed 
blood of Dutch subjects brought him his 
tangible benefits. 

Not only for his private extravagances, — 
for, although he could be called a regular 
man, Willem I. was, in some respects, as 
sublime as the Sublime Porte himself, — but 
likewise for the errors or crimes of his chil- 
dren, the public purse was brought into 
requisition. His son, the prince of Orange, 
afterwards Willem II., was one of the most 
unfortunate slaves to almost every game. 
He was, as early as 1816, in Spa, gambling 



16 HOLLAND : ITS INSTTIUTIOXS J 



with, two notorious characters. Chance or 
cheating was against him, and he sought to 
recover his loss in a way which induced his 
father to send the two fellows, with large 
pensions, to foreign countries, where their 
share of the national spoil was regularly for- 
warded them through the ambassadors, by 
that infernal branch of the ministry of (so 
called) justice, known by the name of the 
Secret Police. Transactions similar to these 
were of frequent occurrence, and it was in- 
variably the nation who had to pay for them. 
It was even the nation who had to pay for 
the scandalous robbery of the princess of 
Orange's diamonds, committed in Brussels, 
in 1829, amounting to about a million ster- 
ling, and for which robbery a poor Italian, 
Polari, was convicted.* 



* That deluded quasi- criminal, according to some 
versions, died in the prison of Woerden, shortly before his 
time expired and he expected to receive the full reward 
for his obliging abnegation ; but, according to other re- 
ports, he was put on board a vessel, with some thousands 
of guilders in his possession, to be taken, with his own 
free consent, to America, on which passage, however 



ITS PRESS, KIXGS, AND PRISONS. 17 



All these, and other like events, were 
freely discussed by the initiated, at the time 
I visited the principal places of Holland. 
Another grief, based upon facts not so gene- 
rally known, was the manner in which 
WiUein disposed of the estates belonging to 
the country in the East Indian possessions. 
Sugar and coffee plantations, and other 
similar kinds of property, of millions in 
value, were given away, upon certain con- 
ditions, to persons of influence who had 
become troublesome, or in one way or the 
other obnoxious. These estates in the Indies 
were either directly or indirectly transferred. 
Sometimes it was asserted that, according to 
the government contracts, the new possessor 
or tenant had already deposited a certain 
amount of the sum to be paid annually ; but 
it more frequently happened that the fortu- 



(during a dark night, he being alone with a well-known 
secret police character, whose public hotel in Brussels, 
now more than ten years since, suddenly sprang up into 
magnificence), he accident ally fell overboard and was 
drowned, the mystery of the famous robbery going with 
him. 

C 



18 



HOLLAND I ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



nate individual received a large sum into the 
bargain, in order the more properly to un- 
dertake the management of his plantation or 
tin mine, or whatever sort of estate it might 
happen to be. The king evidently considered 
these colonies, conquered by a heroic race, 
strange to him, his private property, and 
acted accordingly. Never was any proper 
account of their revenues given, nor had 
anybody a real control over them. 

The rumour, moreover, was gaining sub- 
stance, that there was, apart from the East 
Indian matters, a deficit of some millions in 
the public exchequer, which even the clever 
royal financier did not know how to account 
for. 

"While all these topics were matters of 
every- day club and tavern conversation with 
well-to-do people, the middle and poorer 
classes complained bitterly of the dullness of 
trade, the scarcity of labour, and the high 
prices of the absolute necessaries of life. 
These classes suffered severely indeed ; and 
death from starvation was not without pre- 
cedent at that time, although the govern- 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 19 

ment officers endeavoured to conceal the 
appalling facts as much as lay in their power. 
Let it here be said, that if any species of 
human beings are to be pitied and have a 
claim upon cosmopolitan philanthropy, surely 
the Dutch artizan and labourer belong to the 
number. Many thousands of them — espe- 
cially those living in the country — have 
never the means of purchasing even so much 
as an ounce of beef or a glass of wine or 
wholesome beer ; the great majority never 
taste other than black bread. Monotonous 
and dreary is their daily life, and there is 
scarcely anything between their cradle and 
their coffin but sorrow, anguish, and toil. 
It was another of king "Willem's maxims to 
keep down and to impoverish the industrious 
and laborious as much as possible. Ease and 
comfort might bring happiness and jocularity 
to the working man's family, and having no 
longer to fear for to-morrow's existence, he 
might think and speak at his fireside about 
the acts of the government ; he might even 
frequent a public-house, where he could read 
a newspaper. Poverty — extreme poverty — 

c 2 



20 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 

engenders degradation and ignorance, and 
degradation and ignorance are the reins of 
the bridle of servitude. The middle classes 
and common labourers are the principal con- 
tributors to the vortex of the Dutch exche- 
quer. In Holland the poor man has to pay 
for the light which the sun gratuitously 
sends down ; for the fireside at which he 
sits ; for the fire itself ; for his bread and 
for his meat ; for soap and for salt ; all these 
articles of necessity are taxed in that land, 
and the Dutchman who sees his cattle ex- 
ported to England, can obtain cheaper meat 
in London than in Amsterdam ! 

But more than all these melancholy cir- 
cumstances, an exasperating rumour which 
was getting form and substance daily, threw 
every protectant into fury, and one had only 
to touch this tune, to hear vociferated a strain 
of maledictions and execrations against the 
paternal king. The rumour was, that king 
Willem intended to marry one of the women 
of his entourage — the Countess Henriette 
d'Oultremont, formerly chamberlady to his 
late Queen, and that woman was, oh ! horror, 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AXD PRISONS. 21 



a Konian catholic. The religious hatred 
which he himself had kindled in the breasts 
of his protestant subjects was immense, and 
no greater crime could be imagined in a king, 
at whose voice they hurried to the field of 
battle, in deadly strife against their catholic 
brethren of the southern provinces, than to 
think of such a desecrating matrimonial 
alliance. 

Busts and pictures representing Willem 
I. disappeared from many hotels and private 
dwellings, and not a few of them were broken 
to pieces or thrown into the flames. At that 
time, probably, not one protestant in a thou- 
sand was to be found in Holland, possessing 
sufficient toleration, enlightenment, and phil- 
osophy to look with an impartial eye on the 
king's intended marriage. Despising the 
tyrant and mourning the state into which his 
unscrupulous misdeeds had plunged their 
country, these few, unprejudiced by religious 
rancour, grieved that an effete man of seven 
decades, with one foot in the grave, could 
thus sacrifice the nimbus of his supposed 
virtues, and his reputation of being a wise 



22 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

man, to the faded attractions of a woman, 
who, in Brussels, ten or more years pre- 
viously, had been the bonne amie of his own 
son and heir-apparent. 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 



23 



CHAPTEE III. 

Jonker E. L. Yan Andringa de Kempenaer. — The Prince 
of Orange a dangerous conspirator against his father. 
The "Hadelsblad," " Arnhemsche Courant," " Noord 
Brabander," and " Ylissingsche Courant." — Suicide 
of the Editor, Yan der Biezen. 

During the same time that I was in search 
of information about the state of the public 
mind in Holland, another person, then as 
unknown to me as I was a stranger to him, 
was strolling from place to place with inten- 
tions somewhat analagous to my own ; — that 
person was Jonker B. L. Van Andringa de 
Kempenaer, who afterwards closed his life 
in a fearful catastrophe. He has for a 
grave — far removed from the human eye — 
the secret recesses of the treacherous ocean, 
and for a coffin that ill-fated vessel the 
" City of Glasgow." 



24 



HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 



It is a fact, leading to serious reflection, 
that in States where hereditary power is es- 
tablished the heir-apparent becomes, so soon 
as he has reached a certain state of manhood, 
the enemy of his father. I know there have 
been exceptions ; but very few indeed. 
This filial hostility is one of the many argu- 
ments against the introduction of hereditary 
power, proving, as it does, that it is un- 
natural in its consequences. Kerer did there 
exist more animosity and rage, often difficult 
of restraint, between father and son, than 
between "Willem I. and the prince of Orange. 
Some years before the time I am speaking of 
De Kempenaer was dishonourably dismissed 
by "Willem I. from the army in Java, and 
now he was the principal favourite and confi- 
dant of the prince of Orange. 

Our first meeting together, unintention- 
ally on both sides, happened to be in Leeu- 
warden, the chief town of the province of 
Friesland. De Kempenaer was then about 
forty years of age, and was a strong-built 
man, stout, not very tall, with regular fea- 
tures, and a keen piercing eye ; he had, 



ITS PKESS, KINGS, AXD PRISONS. 25 



however, neither in his gait nor in his man- 
ners, that which distinguished the real gen- 
tleman. He was either very retired or too 
communicative in his conversation ; and when 
excited by excess of wine or by contradiction, 
he swaggered as a braggadocia, and his lan- 
guage became extremely vulgar and disgust- 
ing. He then uttered the most shocking 
blasphemies and the lowest sort of expres- 
sions. Choleric, irritable, and unsociable, 
he had no friends, and not one person in the 
world upon whom he could rely. Even the 
parasites who surrounded him in his clays of 
glory and influence, could not long submit 
to his ribaldry and whimsical temper. He 
often exhibited the same roughness in 
the company of well-educated persons, as in 
that of worthless characters. He was not 
ashamed, in broad daylight, to walk in the 
streets of the Hague, where everyone knew 
him, in company with notorious swell-mobs- 
men and unfortunate girls. His relations, 
who were very respectable, had broken off 
all connection with him, and considered him 
as a stain on their pedigree. He was not 



26 Holland : its ixstitctioxs ; 

generous, but prodigal ; for he threw his 
money entirely away when he was tippling 
or when he had a political or a lustful object 
in view. This man spent heaps of gold un- 
scrupulously, and I feel confident T am not 
going beyond the bounds of truth in stating 
that king Willem II. paid for his silence of 
former services at least half a million of 
guilders ! The royal gifts, first freely given 
and latterly exacted, were chiefly spent in 
nocturnal bacchanals of the most repulsive 
description, or lost at the roulette table at 
German watering-places. It could not be 
denied that De Kempenaer was possessed of 
a vast amount of personal courage, for he had, 
during the time he served as lieutenant-ad- 
jutant at Java, given the most unequivocal 
proofs of his undaunted firmness and mil- 
lance* It was for his bravery that he re- 
ceived the Dutch " MiMtaire Willems-Orde." 
Willem II. , on his ascending the throne, 
reinstated him in his rank and honours, and 
gave the utmost publicity to that act, one of 
the first of his reign. De Kempenaer, how- 
ever, had no inclination to return as a subal- 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 



27 



tern officer to the East Indies, but continued 
to reside in the Hague, apparently in favour 
with his protector, who would much rather 
have dispensed with his services, after he had 
once succeeded in obtaining his father's 
throne. With his natural valour De Kem- 
penaer would probably have been an excel- 
lent officer commanding a troop of Bashi 
Bazouks. but for anv other station in life he 
was totally unfit. 

Although onlv a novice in the tortuous 
sloughs of politics and conspiracy when 
chance threw me in the way of De Kempe- 
naer, I nevertheless soon discovered that in 
him I had to deal with a secret a<?ent of 
the prince of Orange. I plainly revealed my 
opinions, nor did he contradict me, or deny 
the truth of my assertions. He only requested 
me not to divulge a word about him or his 
mission. He was in possession of a number 
of pamphlets and caricatures, all respecting 
the kins:, which he was clandestinelv circa- 
lating. One of the most vehement and lewd 
doggerels I ever saw published had for its 
title: — " Willem Kaaskop en Jetje Donder- 



23 



HOLLAND I ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



moncF — ("William Cheesehead and Harriett 
Thundermonth"), and contained a series of 
invectives and accusations against the kin? 
and the Countess d'Oultreinont. calculated 
to work upon the inexperienced classes. 
Unprincipled lampooners and poetasters had 
been engaged to cover the head of the old 
kins: TTiilem with imoniinv. But not one 
of their productions appeared to attract the 
attention of sharp-eyed justice ; at least no 
serious attempts were made to discover the 
printing-offices from which these secret 
ephemera were issued. They were first read 
amongst Mends and acquaintances, but soon 
publicly sold, and afterwards even exhibited, 
with the publisher's name, in booksellers 1 
shops, chiefly in Amsterdam. The magistrate 
of that town appeared to be cognizant of. or 
complicated in the plot, as it was also in that 
place where all the libels were printed. The 
Countess d'Oultremont was so vilified by 
these productions, that she dared not show 
herself anv longer in society nor in the 
streets, and she left Holland before her grey- 
haired adorer. 



ITS PPvESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 29 

De Kempenaer endeavoured to induce me 
not to give to the " Tolk" a downright 
republican character or tendency. "Write 
as much as you think proper," said he, 
" against "WiHem I. and his government. 
Never mind the consequences as regards 
yourself. You have carte blanche. Assist 
us in our plans. You are the only person 
in the northern provinces who can efficiently 
do it. Give life and unanimity to the people's 
desire that the old dotard abdicates in favour 
of his successor, who is generally beloved, 
and whose reign will be as beneficial to his 
countrymen as his father's conduct has been 
pernicious to his subjects." There was conse- 
quently no doubt that the prince of Orange 
gave the impulse to and endeavoured to turn 
to his own advantage the general excitement. 
This reminded me involuntarily of his pro- 
clamation of European fame, addressed to 
the Belgians during the early part of the 
revolution of 1830, while the prince was in 
Antwerp, in which he said, " Je me mets a 
la tete du mouvement" — "I put myself at the 
head of the movement," — a movement which 



30 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS \ 



his father called a rebellion, and against 
which the prince turned, so soon as he ex- 
perienced the painful conviction that it was 
too late, and that the sway of Orange-Nassau, 
even if represented by him, had become an 
impossibility in that beautiful country. 
Setting aside his conspiracies against his 
father, I knew nothing at that time concern- 
ing the prince, which did not plead to his 
advantage, and I could, therefore, easily 
give my word that I would not depreciate 
the good qualities of the ambitious aspirant 
to the Dutch throne. Other newspapers, the 
then leaders of public opinion in Holland, 
were more decidedly won in the interest of 
the prince of Orange. They were the Vlis» 
singsche Courant, the Arnhemsche Conrant, 
the Noord Brabander, and the Amsterdammer 
C our ant or Algemeen Handelsblad. The 
compilers of these journals were after- 
wards faithfully rewarded by Willem 
II., not, however — owing to the advice or 
remonstrance of his ministers — to the extent 
they had expected. The editor of the Vlis- 
singsche Courant, whose name I do not recol- 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 31 

lect, obtained an inferior provincial situation. 
The talented writer of the Arnhemsche 
C our ant, Eoest Van Limbing, was appointed 
ambassador at the not very pleasant court 
of Athens. Jan Wap, (known as the author 
of a a Voyage to Kome") editor of the 
Noord Brabander, a catholic journal, written 
in an excellent sarcastic style, got a mensual 
allotment of 300 guilders. The editor of the 
Algemeen Handelsblad, for many years the 
principal journal in Holland, and, notwith- 
standing its vacillations, the most influential 
organ, had a royal bounty bestowed upon 
him, was afterwards decorated and received, 
in course of time, even crosses of foreign mo- 
narchs, and through the king's (Willem II.) 
ascendancy, was also appointed consul for 
two or three minor States. The thicker 
the honours, however, showered upon this 
editor, the more unhappy he became. It 
would appear as if his conscience would not 
allow him to enjoy any peace. That man — 
Van der Biezen was his name — was of un- 
known origin till he started as editor of the 
Algemeen Handehblad. In the beginning of 



32 HOLLAND I ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 

his editorship in 1830, he was actually rather 
roughly pushed from the Amsterdam ex- 
change; but being a highly-gifted person, 
he soon made his journal the first newspaper 
in the realm, and he gained importance in 
the same degree as the Handelsblad acquired 
influence. His pecuniary affairs also pros- 
pered by it, not directly, however, — for the 
proprietors, Diederichs Brothers, did not pay 
him an extravagant salary — but indirectly, 
in cleverly promoting the views and interests 
of his mercantile protectors. The idea of 
his own venality preying too heavily on his 
mind, while on a tour through Germany, he 
threw himself from the steamer conveying 
him, into the Rhine, and in the watery em- 
brace of that swiftly-flowing river he 
breathed his last. A considerable sum was 
offered and paid for his corpse, but weeks 
elapsed before the disfigured remains of the 
wretched man were discovered. As his 
widow was now in possession of the momen- 
tous private correspondence he formerly kept 
up with persons of high standing, and even 
with king Willem II, the chief, or manager 



ITS PRESS. KINGS, AND PRISONS. 



33 



of Holland's secret police, M. D'Engel- 
bronner. was sent to Amsterdam ; he re- 
turned with the dangerous papers in his 
possession — I believe it was in 1847 — but, 
strange to say, not Ions: after he had left 
Amsterdam the widow was found dead in 
her room ; and a post-mortem examination 
having been made, an opinion was declared 
that she died of poison, and a suspicion was 
pretty generally expressed that the greater 
portion of the considerable fortune which 
her husband had left her had disappeared 
with the letters. The Director of Police in 
Amsterdam made a proci s-verbal about the 
mysterious death, and the circumstances con- 
nected with it, but all further inquiries were 
quashed — orders to that effect hawing been 
issued from the highest quarters. I cannot 
say by whose hand or by what means the 
unfortunate woman met her death, but this 
much I know, that I saw and read, in the be- 
ginning of 1850. a letter dated from Eotter- 
dam, addressed to the Dutch Minister of Jus- 
tice, Hedermeijer Yan Rosenthal, and signed 
D. B. Adrian, a person formerly in favour 



34 



HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 



with "Willem II., in which, the writer posi- 
tively and plainly asserted that D'Engel- 
bronner poisoned Madame Van Der Biezen. 
I also heard from the month of that minister 
himself that he had received such a letter, 
and I know likewise that no proceedings 
were taken, either against the alleged mur- 
derer or against the writer of such a most 
serious accusation. * 

I was not longer than three days in Leeu- 
warden, but I did not leave the place with- 
out having gathered some useful informa- 
tion. I parted with Jonker de Kempenaer 
on very good terms ; and having returned 
to Groningen, I made all necessary arrange- 
ments for an early publication of the Tolk 
der Vryheid, which from the very beginning 
had a sufficient number of subscribers to 
support itself. 



* Article 373 of the Penal Code says:— " All who 
bring a false imputation before the officers of the justice 
of the government or of the police, against one or more 
persons, shall be punished with imprisonment from a 
month to a year, and a fine from one hundred to three 
thousand francs/ 9 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 35 



CHAPTER IV. 

General System of the Government of Willem I.— 
Taxation. — Justice. — Secret Police. — The Press. 

On a former occasion I denounced the ini- 
quitous fiscal system in Holland, which 
victimises the industrious and toiling classes. 
I will now add, that as a general rule it may 
be laid down that the whole machine of 
taxation is so contrived as to put the heaviest 
burden on the shoulders of labour, in what- 
ever shape it may be, and to exempt wealthy 
idleness, arrogance, and uselessness, as much 
as possible, from all contributions to the exi- 
gencies of the public treasure. This must 
the more be felt in a country where, in com- 
parison of population, taxes are more burthen- 
some than in any other part of the world, 

d 2 



36 HOLLAND ! ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

England not excepted. In round figures, 
three millions of inhabitants have to pay 
between sixty and seventy millions of 
guilders per annum ; and it must be borne 
in mind that this sum is exclusively for the 
state, and that there are two other taxes, 
provincial and communal. In some in- 
stances these latter amount to 75 per cent, 
of the first, or even more. Besides all the 
taxes and rates which directly affect the 
necessaries of life, another onerous imposi- 
tion falls hard upon the retail trade in 
general. J^o Dutch tradesman can sell a 
single article without having previously paid 
a certain sum for his patent or license. The 
amount of these sums varies according to the 
average want of the merchandise the trades- 
man intends to sell. Inn and public-house 
keepers, grocers and bakers, are the first on 
the catalogue. Then follow the hawkers, 
shoemakers, white and blacksmiths, sail- 
makers, tailors, druggists, carpenters, millers, 
chimney-sweeps, and others. Annual fairs 
are as national in Holland as in the Flanders, 
but in the former country a double imposition 



ITS PBESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 



37 



weighs upon all people, who will risk a small 
sum of money in them ; for not onlv have 
they to pay the fee for a patent, valuable for 
the occasion only, but also the communal 
authorities for the space of ground on which 
their booths or tents are erected. 

As no income-tax exists in Holland, the 
numerous idle couponholders are exempt 
from all the onerous burthens laid upon the 
industrious active man, always ready to do 
good with the largesses given to him by 
fortune. All factories — in a word, all esta- 
blishments of industry — have to bring their 
peculiar oblations to the altar of the in- 
clement and insatiable fisc. 

The principle that he who has most should 
pay most is reversed in Holland. 

Payment of taxes should give a right to a 
policy of insurance against bad government 
and oppression ; but this also is not the case 
in Holland. Even the revenue officers are 
specimens of petty tyrants ; and were they 
not, their directors, inspectors, comptrollers, 
searchers, or other ors overs, would soon have 
them removed or dismissed. With such a 



38 HOLLAND ! ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



fiscal system, a large number of officers is 
required, who absorb a great deal of the 
taxes ; and meanwhile the ratepayers, with 
broken hearts, part with their hard-earned 
thrift. In spite of this number of officers, 
however, smuggling has never been put an 
end to. 

The general system of the government of 
Willem I. was de facto autocratic. The 
ministers, as said before, were royal clerks, 
and the majority of the members of the 
Staten-General were not the representatives 

M. 

of the nation, but of the Crown. The elec- 
tion of the representatives was a shameful 
derision. A certain number of inhabitants? 
paying a certain sum as taxes, had a right 
to vote ; these voters could choose an elector, 
the electors chose their town-councillors, 
and the town-council at last were deemed 
purified enough in the filter of sham election 
to choose their member for the Second 
Chamber of the Staten-General ; while the 
king himself chose and appointed the mem- 
bers of the First Chamber of that honourable 
bodv. 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 



39 



As regards the law and judiciary system, 
this was in perfect harmony with the machine 
of government. Laws in general could not 
be said to have been constructed with a view 
to prevent crimes, and to ameliorate the 
moral condition of the people ; but with the 
conspicuous complacency to give the execu- 
tors of these laws every opportunity to 
punish, and to put the fate of their fellow- 
creature in their hands. The organisation 
of the jurisdiction is as follows: Every pro- 
vince possesses a Provincial Court, consist- 
ing of, besides a president, vice-president, 
attorney, &c, from seven to nine judges ; 
every district has a Districts-Tribunal, with 
from three to five judges, with the exception 
of Amsterdam, which has twelve ; every 
canton has a Canton-Tribunal for police or 
petty civil affairs ; and above all these insti- 
tutions is the High Council or High Court of 
the Netherlands, which rules in the last 
resort, and against whose decisions there is 
no appeal. This High Court has from twelve 
to fourteen judges. Their salary is 4,500 
guilders or £375 per annum; whilst the 



40 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



judges in the Provincial Courts have from 
2,000 to 3,000 guilders per annum, (chiefly 
according to the population of the province) ; 
and the judges in the District-Tribunals 
enjoy from 1,300 to 2,000 guilders per an- 
num. I should not have particularized these 
different salaries, were it not that the paltri- 
ness of them affords the means of degrading 
the stipendiaries to tools of despotism, to 
Tiberian instrumenti regni. All these judges 
are appointed indiscriminately and directly 
by the king, with the exception of the judges 
of the High Court, who are appointed, always 
by the king, out of a list of five candidates 
nominated by the Staten-General. It is to 
the head of the government alone that the 
Dutch judges look for promotion, rewards, 
and decorations, not only for themselves, 
but also for their sons, brothers, cousins, 
and other relations ; for it is easy to be con- 
ceived that nepotism and favouritism flourish 
in such a soil. The judiciary power in Hol- 
land may be considered as one great family 
in the service of the man who guides the 
rudder of the ship of state. The members 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 41 

of that family are instinctive and implacable 
foes of every free-minded and courageous 
editor or author, who is in bad odour with 
their patron or his immediate successor. It 
is, however, but fair to mention that there 
are exceptions ; and it is certainly true that 
Holland possesses judges who for no consi- 
deration in the world would betray their 
solemn duties, or deviate a hair's breadth 
from the voice of their consciences ; judges, 
in short, worthy of that grave, signification- 
bearing name. But then these are as a few 
pearls scattered over a nauseating dunghill. 
When it is taken into consideration that a 
jury is a thing unknown in Holland; that 
venality is prevalent among subaltern 
judges ; that the orders for preventive arrest 
emanate from the District Tribunals ; that 
the concession of only two (the majority of 
three) of these inferior judges is required for 
such order, and that, especially in puffed-up 
political cases, this preventive arrest (viz., 
incarceration without condemnation) is 
stretched for months and even for longer 
than a-year, without any trial whatever — 



4^ HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 

wlien all this is taken into consideration, a 
faint idea may be formed of the distribution 
of justice in Holland. 

Hand-in-hand with this abominable phan- 
tom of justice goes that hideous monster, 
f * Secret Police." The central den of that enig- 
matical being is in the ministry of justice, and, 
therefore, in the right place. The minister 
himself is thereputed head of this dark contri- 
vance against the tranquillity, the happiness, 
nnd the freedom of all unsubjugated indivi- 
duals; but the mere superficial knowledge 
these often-changing excellencies can boast of 
would answer no essential purpose, had they 
not an experienced guide in that gloomy laby- 
rinth, well acquainted with all the peculiarities 
of its mazy grounds. This guide is the mana- 
ger of the secret police ; he is the ministers 
factotum. His eye penetrates the whole in- 
famous traffic, and his hand holds the keys 
of all its manifold ramifications. Commonly 
he occupies, as D'Engelbronner, the dignity 
of refer endaris. He may even, after many 
years' service, be appointed secretary- 
general, and then he is the highest in rank 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 43 

under the minister. The nature of his em- 
ployment does not often allow him to retire 
from office, till life retires from him. Du- 
ring his long career he wraps many a noble 
heart in despair, and stifles many an ex- 
alted and generous aspiration. But the 
reverberation of the misery he expends takes 
form in his dull features, and the more his 
breast pants with the unquenchable thirst of 
creating unhappiness, the more unhappy 
does he feel himself. Immediately under 
his orders are the sub-directors, for the 
greater part commissaries of police and 
superannuated members of the Dutch Her- 
manclad, and these are in direct contact with 
the active secret agents and underlings. 
The latter have either to forward or to give 
verbally their reports at specified times, and 
to communicate at once with their chiefs in 
cases of emergency. Only the isolated and 
highest of the initiated, if the word high 
may be allowed here, are in direct corres- 
pondence with the ministry. All receive 
their pay from their immediate chiefs, and 
sub quator ocidce. Taking them as a body, 



44 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 

the common secret police agents are divided 
into first and second classes ; but to these 
must be added another category, viz., the 
" provoking agents." The first-class agents 
visit sometimes the places where no sub- 
director resides, or live at the principal 
towns, as the Hague, Amsterdam, and Eot- 
terdam. They not only frequent hotels, 
taverns, coffee-houses, balls, concerts, and 
theatres, but often succeed in being intro- 
duced into respectable private families. The 
second class frequent the lower gin and beer- 
shops, endeavour to win the confidence of the 
servants of persons of quality, and mix up 
in all quarrels. The other class consists of 
those stains on human nature who have a 
refined aptitude to rouse, with diabolical 
intentions, the indignation and anger of even 
the most peaceable and good-hearted man. 
They know by their experience how to 
wound and irritate the righteous, the 
straightforward, the imprudent, the brave, 
the sensible, aye ! even the coward and indo- 
lent. Commonly there will come into the 
dispute between the provoking agent and 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 45 

the victim of the secret police, accidentally 
as it would appear, but actually by long 
premeditated and understood concert, two 
or three other persons, who join in the 
scuffle which follows, and afterwards appear 
as witnesses against the man who must be 
sacrificed, and with their friend, the pro- 
voker, frequently commit the most shocking 
perjury. Ordinary cases of this kind pass 
unnoticed by the continental press. Only 
in very remarkable instances are the 
names of witnesses published ; and the 
agent provocateur can carry on his wicked 
trade a long time before any suspicion is 
attached to his name. 

A free-thinking and free-acting individual 
is a marked man on the Continent; but 
should he, moreover, have the abilities and the 
courage to write for his compatriots, and 
openly take up the gauntlet for right against 
wrong, then he is considered to be immi- 
nently dangerous. Every sort of underhand 
dealing, the most artful Machiavelism can 
imagine, is brought into requisition against 
such champions of liberty and truth. Could 



46 HOLLAND I ITS INSTITUTIONS ] 



you but speak from your early tombs, my 
friends De Thouars and Yan Bevervoorde, 
your words would create a shudder of 
abhorrence all over the world. You both 
had, as I had, the felon's chains pressed round 
your wrists ; you both had, like myself, to 
suffer in prison, in company with criminals 
of every shade ; but you ! you succumbed 
and left me alone,* But in order not to 
anticipate upon the revelations I have to 
record, I shall retake the thread of my nar- 
rative. The several kinds of machinations 
to which the free and tyranny- despising man 
is exposed, are too numerous and too com- 
plicated to warrant a minute and elaborate 
description in this work. Nevertheless, as 
I proceed, many conclusive examples will 
be brought to light, to convey to the reader's 
mind an idea of their true nature. The 

* The ^Marquis de Thouars was related to the family 
of Orange Nassau. This, however, did not deter them 
from prosecuting and condemning him, and sending 
him, without even a trial, from the northern to the 
southern parts of the kingdom, handcuffed and fastened 
to convicts. He was my colloborator in 1844 and 184o> 
and died, an exile, in Hanover, in 1850. 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 47 

secret police aims not only at the political 
death of her enemies, but also at their social 
ruin. Destruction ; that is their parole. As 
the private foes of the different members of 
the secret police frequently share the fate 
of the persons deemed dangerous to the state, 
this contrivance does not seldom surpass 
itself in flagitiousness. The prey chosen by 
the government or by the secret corps is 
never long to perceive that something is 
going on, and that unknown tongues slander 
him. In case he is in a dependent position, 
and his reputation is not yet established, but 
only favourably progressing, he will soon 
discover that his credit is rapidly declining. 
He may be a lost man if the unmerited re- 
bukes or upbraidings of his former acquaint- 
ances or protectors afflict him. He is often 
ruined, if he has not the ready means to 
live upon, or establish himself in another 
country. Even if he has an accredited 
name, he is in danger of losing it, should he 
fail to discover in time from which quarter 
the treacherous storm threatens. If he is 
married he may for ever lose either his wife 



48 



HOLLAND ! ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



or her affection and his domestic bliss ; for 
the secret police have most seducing crea- 
tures of the tender sex at their disposal, and 
the victim may be brought into irresistible 
company, introduced by a friend, whilst at 
an appointed moment a second friend acci- 
dentally appears with the victim's wife. 

Editors of free-principled journals have 
still other adversaries. Like all govern- 
ments, the Dutch has its own newspapers. 
The principal of these prints, in the latter 
days of Willem I., was the Avondbocle, a daily 
journal, receiving princely support from the 
old king. That it was with the people's 
money is of course understood. It is also 
a matter of course that the organs of des- 
potic governments may say what they think 
proper, without having to fear the slightest 
result from law proceedings, and that 
the contrary applies to the organs of public 
opinion. The editor of one of the latter can 
never safely write an article without having 
his manuscript framed in the different laws 
on the press ; and he is compelled to read it 
over and over again in order to avoid the 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AXD PRISONS. 49 

many explications and susceptible stipula- 
tions of these double-faced laws, stopping at 
least within 45 degrees of their apparent 
compass. The principal Dutch laws on the 
press are those of 16th May, 1829, and 1st 
June, 1830. They are commonly called 
" occasion laws," for they were made for 
and pointed against the Belgian "rebels;" 
but ultimately they answered wonderfully well 
in Holland. Besides these there is the Code 
Napoleon, exactly as it emanated from the 
cabinet of the French emperor, in February, 
1812, the Dutch government having been 
quite busy ever since 1815 in projecting 
another Penal Code, but up to this time 
without the desired success. However excel- 
lent Xapoleon's Code is in many respects, 
nothing can be more iniquitous or dangerous 
to an editor than article 368, which was 
adapted to the emperor's tyrannical arrange- 
ments with reference to the press, but forms 
a malicious contrast to the spirit of the Dutch 
constitution, which proclaims that the press 
is free. According to the title of the code 
to which that article belongs, " any false im- 

E 



50 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 

putation" is a libel. Nothing more just than 
that definition. But then article S68 says, 
u Any imputation shall be considered false 
to the confirmation of which the proof (or 
conviction) required by law is not produced, 
consequently the accuser shall not have any 
claims to a trial of the imputed case on that 
occasion." According to the Dutch judges, 
and, as it appears, in conformity with the 
above code, the proof required by law is a 
magisterial conviction and sentence — nothing 
more, nothing less. Do not speak about 
your proofs ; what signifies yourself ! for you 
are not allowed to prove what you have said, 
though your case be as clear as the noon-day 
sun. You and others may see a crime com- 
mitted. Well, should the perpetrator be a 
friend of the judges of your place, and the 
latter do not feel inclined to bring him into 
trouble, you have only publicly to relate or 
to publish in a newspaper what you have 
seen with your own eyes, and it is you who 
are sent to prison, perhaps for five years, 
and the actual criminal, who appears as a 
witness against you, titters when he hears 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 51 

the sentence pronounced by his honest 
friends. 

I really think I have not said too much 
in calling such practices " harassing prose- 
cutions." A hundred times preferable a 
country like Kussia, despotic, but loyal, than 
to vegetate in a land where according to the 
constitution the press is free, but where 
nothing is left undone to bring a confident 
author, who enters the arena of liberal prin- 
ciples, into the net of perdition, and where 
the writer, who is becoming too subtle to be 
openly caught in the traps of mock-justice, 
must every night expect an armed attack 
of hired assassins. I speak on the authority 
of personal experience. 



52 



HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 



CHAPTER V. 

Ludicrous Scenes in a Wafelkraam. — Uproar in Gronin- 
gen. — Arrest and Preventive Imprisonment. — Suicide 
of Lieutenant-Colonel Franck. — The Dutch Army 
and Kavy. 

The regular publication of the Tolk der 
Vryheid commenced in the end of March. I 
began my task with the impetus of a young 
and vigorous mind, and burning with the 
desire of being useful to my country. Du- 
ring the whole time I had the management 
of the paper it was written with unflinching 
courage. But it had not made its appear- 
ance more than six weeks when an equally 
unforeseen and unexpected event made a 
sudden interruption in its publication. 
Mention has already been made of Dutch 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 53 



fairs ; I must now speak particularly of the 
Groningen fair or kermis of May, 1840. 
It was one of the most jocular I ever wit- 
nessed; the entire population appeared to 
have laid aside their grief and pain, and to 
enjoy the fourteen days fete with delight. 
On one evening I was present at the perform- 
ance of a troop of comedians from the pro- 
vince of Holland. To give them a mark of 
my appreciation of their play, I invited 
three of the actors the same night to supper. 
They, together with the publisher of the 
Tolk, Jan Bolt, went with me to my house, 
where they partook freely of wine. We 
conversed about the drama, had some very 
innocent music, and enjoyed ourselves quite 
peaceably, not a word about politics having 
been uttered. We left my house together 
and sallied forth to the kermis, which is 
usually frequented during the whole night. 
At these fairs they have wooden houses or 
tents, with two or three neatly-arranged 
apartments for customers. The proprietors 
travel from one kermis to another, selling 
different kinds of pastry ; the chief* article, 



54 



HOLLAND I ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



however, being a light, exquisite cake, 
called in French gauffre, and in Dutch wafeh 
from which is derived the word wafelkraam, 
the name by which these moveable houses 
are known. "We seated ourselves in one of 
them, kept by a woman commonly called 
u Doove Saar," — "Deaf Sarah;" and after 
the lapse of a few minutes we were joined 
by other merry-makers. There was rather 
too much of hilariating wine to drench the 
wofels. " I drink," cried a student, " I 
drink, gentlemen, the corporal extension of 
his august Nihility, Willem Kaaskop." A 
roar of laughter followed this singular toast. 
After silence had been restored another 
kermis-fellow filled his glass and proposed, 
" Long live the Kepublic." I entreated the 
company not to repeat any of those exclama- 
tions, which, although they bore witness to 
the excellence of their political opinions, 
nevertheless could not fail to be productive 
of more harm than good. Order and silence 
succeeded my admonition, but only for a 
few minutes. On the chimney-piece of the 
wafelkraam stood a large, well-executed, full- 



ITS PRESS. KINGS, AND PRISONS. 55 

length likeness of the Prince of Orange, and 
one of the mirthful friends observed that 
such a fellow was obnoxious to our company, 
and su^ested that he should be turned out. 
The company seeing nothing unreasonable 
in the proposal, Doove Saar was summoned 
to appear before her customers. But Saar 
was a staunch friend and supporter of 
Orange-Xassau, and she peremptorily refused 
to degrade the prince by removing his por- 
trait. Thereupon Fetz, the son of an em- 
ploys in the Hague, one of the actors who 
had been supping with me, jumped on the 
bar of the wafelkraam, and tried to pull the 
picture from its place. But at that moment 
Saar advanced with the utensil which she 
nightly used in baking her cakes, which was 
double-bladed and red-hot, and coming be- 
hind him swore that she would " beefsteak" 
him if he did not desist. It was a most sin- 
gular scene. Outside the door nothing but 
darkness ; at the side of the door and the 
bar a large, lustrous, flaming fire ; on the 
bar a slender young man of extraordinary 
procerity, shaking the prince of Orange ; 



56 



HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 



behind him Fury Saar with her vulcanic im- 
plement ; the fiiry herself surrounded by a 
eyeloop and half a dozen of skittish junones ; 
and in the perspective a number of frolic- 
some kermisgasten* On Saar proceeding to 
execute her threat, everyone was ready to 
put her out of doors and take to her trade 
himself. She, however, amidst indescribable 
confusion, at last consented to take her 
cherished prince away. Again the glasses 
were filled to the brim, and glee and raillery 
prevailed ; but it did not last long. Another 
of the company proposed that the prince of 
Orange should be again brought in, in order 
to be hung. Things taking rather an earnest 
turn, and my publisher, Jan Bolt, who, as 
well as myself, had hitherto kept aloof, now 
also joining in the obstreperous cry of c< Down 
with the king! 55 and "Long live the Re- 
public ! 55 — I considered it prudent to retire, 
and accordingly left the wafelkraam and went 
home. 



* " Guests of the fair," as they are called in Holland 

V 

and Flanders. 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AXD PRISONS, 57 



It was scarcely seven in the morning 
when a person belonging to the printing- 
office awoke me, bringing the sad intelligence 
that the waftlkraam company had been 
made prisoners, one of them being Bolt. I 
soon learnt that after I had left them, they 
continued their mad-brained work, and in- 
creased it to some extent. The police, 
skulking around the bacchanals, too timid 
to interfere themselves, had informed the 
justices and the military authorities of what 
was going on. In consequence of these re- 
ports the garrison was ordered to be ready 
at a moment's notice, a strong detachment 
was sent out to the place of tumult, and the 
Jeermisgasten, very wisely, surrendered with- 
out capitulation. I walked through the 
principal streets, and everywhere met nu- 
merous patrols. Groningen had, all of a 
sudden, assumed the appearance of a town 
in a state of siege. The brawl of some 
twenty-five young men at a kermis feast had 
caused so much apprehension in the narrow 
minds of the authoritative pigmies, that they 
fancied their very safety was at stake. Fear, 



58 



HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



indeed, is at the bottom of the heart of every 
continental despot, and it forms not less the 
precipitate in the bosoms of his satellites and 
drivelling slaves. I had not taken the 
slightest part in the foolhardy freaks of the 
kermisgasten ; and my leaving their com- 
pany was a proof, I trusted, of my non- 
approval of their conduct. Amongst the 
persons who participated in this nocturnal 
uproar were some who were related to the 
magistrates, and this circumstance I con- 
sidered equivalent to an order for the release 
of all the quasi-delinquents. Seeing, how- 
ever, that the population were in a state of 
excitement, I was convinced that my absence 
from town for a few days was desirable, for 
the sake of the prisoners as well as for the 
restoration of tranquillity. An acquaintance 
of mine, residing in Haiiingen, about fifty 
miles from Groningen, had repeatedly in- 
vited me to pay him a visit, and I 
thought I could not do better than turn the 
present occasion to account. On my way 
thither, in the first village from Groningen, 
I called upon Mr. Guykema, a school- 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 



59 



master, whom I knew, and requested him to 
convey a message to my friends in Gronin^en, 
in which I made arrangements for the 
regular publication of the paper during my 
short absence, and told them where I in- 
tended going. The schoolmaster gaye hi> 
children a holiday, hut he, himself, gener- 
ally considered to be a steady man, took 
something more than a holiday ; at least he 
never reached my friends, but having to pass 
the attractions of the kermis, got intoxicated, 
fell into the gutter, and he, too, was locked 
up. This mischance carried my letter into 
the hands of the sbires, who. of course, con- 
sidered that it was addressed to themselves. 

I had spent two happy and quiet days in 
Harlingen, and intended returning the next 
morning to Groninsren ; but I had not the 
remotest idea that my intention would be 
forced into execution. However, so it was. An 
unaccustomed pull at my arm awoke me early 
the next morning, and on opening my eye> 
I beheld one of the most odd-looking aberra- 
tions of nature it is possible to imagine. 
Simpering as are those inquisitorial tools on 



60 



HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 



the continent when catching, as they magnify 
it, a " good bird," the extremities of the cut 
in his octagonal head, representing a mouth, 
nearly reached his ear-laps, and the elliptic 
eyes, whose apples were swimming in red 
and yellow-coloured filth, were in perfect 
horizontal unison with the parallel below. 
The nostrils of this caricature, larger than 
his goggle eyes, kept a constant look-out for 
the prominent chin, and his narrow, furrowed 
forehead was overshadowed by bunches of 
gnarled, sandy hair. As regards his neck, 
the complement of it was absorbed by his 
undulated body, the latter haying, once in 
possession of the region between ears and 
shoulders, likewise intruded upon the un- 
conscientiousness of the spindle-shanked legs. 
The fellow was in plain clothes, but after I 
had become quite awake and could believe 
what I saw, he exhibited from under his 
cloak a rusty sword, and said, "You do 
not know me, friend ; look here, I am pro 
justitia, and you are my many I asked him 
for the warrant ordering my apprehension ; 
he had none. I then requested him to bring 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 61 



me before the Harlingen magistrate, to hear 
the accusation. " Useless/' he said, " you 
have committed your crime in Groningen, 
and it is thither we are going to transport 
you." I saw that in order to avoid all 
public scandal, the only way was to submit 
to the rusty sword and its parodical bearer. 
He declared he would treat me as his 
brother, give me as much liberty as I de- 
sired, and allow nobody to know that I was 
his prisoner, if I would promise him not to 
run away. At that moment I could haye 
killed the cowardly monsters who, in the 
name of the law, had deprived me of my 
liberty, without right, reason, or even a 
plausible pretext ; but I could not but pity 
and laugh at the poor, infatuated, queer- 
shaped understrapper who had arrested me. 
I made him drink during our passage from 
Harlingen to Leeuwarden, where, with my 
own assistance, he delivered me over to the 
gaoler. 

During the six years which I had served in 
the army I had never received the slightest 
reprimand, much less had I been punished 



62 



HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



with arrest or imprisonment ; and it was in 
Leeuwarden, in the same town where I had 
met De Kempenaer five months previously, 
that I received the first mortifying impres- 
sion of solitary confinement. 

Fathomless is the chasm between life and 
death, but nothing can he more painful to the 
breast of a freedom-adoring man, filling him 
with strange and nameless emotions, than the 
sudden, unexpected, undeserved transition 
from heyday life to passive prison existence ; 
and verily, next to that dark, mysterious pas- 
sage from time to eternitv, ranges in awful- 
ness the change from liberty to interment in 
a living tomb. My first hours of incarcera- 
tion were a series of solemn meditations, and 
far, far in the nebulous spheres of immate- 
riality wandered my pensive mind. After 
ruminating for some time, reality appeared 
before me, and I began to contemplate 
my new position from the humorous side. 
" Tempori aptari decet" philosophised I, and 
stretched myself on the straw mattress, 
which kindly rendered me the same service 
as my own bed was wont to do. 



ITS PEESSj KINGS, AXD PBIS0XS. C3 



The next morning another officer, also in 
plain clothes, came to fetch me, having 
received orders to take me to Groningen. 
He was a comely, good-looking man, and 
treated me with the greatest civility. The 
convevance was, as the dav before, bv water. 
As onr barge approached Groningen, I saw 
thousands of people, evidently waiting my 
arrival. Nearly the whole force of the 
Groningen police was also there, and received 
me with all becoming ceremony. Different 
parties endeavoured to accost me, but the 
Hermandad, forming a square around their 
prisoner, kept them at a respectful distance. 
Unconcerned, as if I was assisting at an 
ovation, and peacefully smoking a small pipe, 
I trod along the streets leading to the prison 
with my guardians. There again an immense 
crowd had assembled. The deurwaarder, or 
doorkeeper, a sort of snmmoner who is 
charged with the execution of warrants and 
the preservation of order in the justice-courts, 
stood, with the gaoler and other ambiguous 
gentlemen, at the entrance of my new resi- 
dence, and the former was just commenciug 



04 HOLLAND I ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

a speech to me, when I turned them all on 
one side, regardless of the nonsense he in- 
tended braying in the name of the king. It 
was getting late in the evening, and, being 
rather tired, I requested the gaoler to take 
me to my cell. I crept into the hammock 
prepared for me, but as my limbs had never 
before been subjected to such an apology for 
a bed, the swinging brought me to the 
ground, and I was obliged to summon the 
gaoler back, when he threw my straw mat- 
tress on the floor, and I quickly flung myself 
upon it. Glad that my transplantation from 
the L'eeuwarden to the Groningen cachot had 
taken place, I slept sweetly as a saint. On 
awaking the next morning, I found that the 
obliging gaoler had provided me with very 
dark lod^in^s. In fact thev were the darkest 
in the entire building, as the occupier of the 
next cell, with whom I was able to converse, 
assured me. This temporary neighbour of 
mine, 3Jr. De Bruyn, was not a common 
prisoner ; he was a gentleman of some edu- 
cation. "He never," he said, "had com- 
mitted anything so low as a theft, he had 



ITS PKESS, KINGS, AXD PRISONS. 65 

only subjected his mother to a genteel 
thrashing, and for that filial entertainment 
the magistrates had kindly treated him to a 
month's imprisonment, of which nearly 
three weeks were already behind his back." 
Mr. De Bruyn also informed me that Bolt, 
the publisher of the ToUc, had been there 
two days, but in another wing of the gaol, 
that he had heard of the icafelkraam-r 'evo- 
lution, and that all the other persons impli- 
cated in that jesting tumult had been set at 
liberty. That news made me desirous of 
knowing upon what ground my publisher 
and I had been thrown into prison." As 
soon as I had light enough in my cell to 
read, I took the document containing the 
charges against me, and which had been 
handed to me the evening before, and found 
the following allegations : First, A riot 
had taken place in a wafelkraam. Second, 
That the journal, called the Tolh der Vryheid, 
was written in a spirit to provoke revolution ; 
and thirdly, That a paper had been found in 
my house headed " Project of an association 
called the republican association." These 



66 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 

elements of persecution, properly jumbled, 
were strong enough in the eyes of Dutch 
judges to commit us preventively to prison, 
and to take as authority for so doing article 
91 of the Penal Code, which punishes with 
death every individual who causes or makes 
an attempt to cause civil war, by bringing 
one citizen in arms against another ; or who 
causes devastation, pillage, and murder, in 
one or more of the parishes of the realm. 
Yes it was so, — the capital punishment was 
looming in the future, and the gallows stood 
at a distance ! I flung the paper from me as 
if it were infected, and cursed the miscreants 
who could so far forget themselves as to put 
their names to it. I had been two days an 
occupant of that dark hole, when one of the 
honorary local inspectors of the prison paid 
me a visit, and ordered the keeper of the 
gaol to give me the best place in the build- 
ing — which was the room in which the stu- 
dents of the Groningen University were 
locked up, when they had had some skirmish 
with the police or other officers of justice. 



ITS PKESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 67 

I found that it faced the street and was alto- 
gether a convenient apartment. The day 
after I had taken possession of the room, 
voices of well-known persons, apparently 
informed that I was there, called out to me 
from the street that my ancient military 
chief, Lieutenant- Colonel Franck, just re- 
turned from Braband, had committed suicide 
that same morning. Bewildered and per- 
plexed by this melancholy intelligence, many 
days elapsed before I recovered my self* 
possession. I had been the youthful friend 
of that noble man ; he had no secrets from 
me ; I was to him as a confiding son to his 
father. Never did I revere a mortal being 
more than I did him. The reflection that, 
perhaps, I could have prevented that fearful 
catastrophe, and that my incarceration had 
probably given the last impulse to the ac- 
complishment of the fearful deed f over- 
whelmed me with anguish asd sorrow. I 
frequented his house after leaving the army 
as often as before ; and during the last eight 
or nine months of his life, since the germ of 

F 2 



68 HOLLAND: ITS INSTITUTIONS \ 

the idee fixe of self-destruction had tormented 
his soul, I had been more than once success- 
ful in banishing the sinister project from his 
mind. 

It has been received as a maxim that he who 
destroys his mortal existence is a coward, 
lacking courage to keep up against the lash- 
ings of fate ; and that suicide is an abominable 
action. I fully contradict the first assertion. 
It is not here the place to set forth metaphy- 
sical demonstrations ; but as an example I 
can affirm that there never breathed a more 
chivalrous, intrepid, and brave man than Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel Franck. Of him it could be 
said that he had the courage of a lion with 
the meekness of a lamb. He had been one of 
jSTapoleon's faithful soldiers, was several 
times wounded, and in one of the last strug- 
gles preceding the capitulation of Paris, in 
1814, was left for dead on the field of battle, 
divested of his uniform, which the plundering 
Cossacks had taken from him. iS'ot able to 
re-assume his duties at an earlier time, he 
returned to Holland after Waterloo had 
decided Europe's destiny, and was, although 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 69 

a captain of cavalry under Napoleon, incor- 
porated as captain of infantry in the Dutch, 
army. He was in Groningen when the 
revolution in Belgium burst out, and the 
government confided to him the organization 
of the eighth regiment of infantry, of which 
he commanded the depot. This regiment 
was the strongest in the Dutch army, 
numbering at times above 6,000 men. All 
the recruits and young soldiers were drilled 
under his indefatigable care before they 
joined the army in the field. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Franck was considered 
one of the most meritorious soldiers in the 
army. Napoleon himself gave him the de- 
coration of the Legion of Honour ; Willem 
of Holland made him Chevalier of the Order 
of the Lion of the Netherlands. The idea that 
he was led to the fatal step through cowardice 
is at once preposterous and disingenuous. As 
regards the reprehensibility of the act, doubt- 
less suicide is always deplorable and disap- 
provable; but there are circumstances in 
human life that go far to extenuate it. An 
exalted idea of honour, certainly not un- 



70 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

creditable in a valiant and frank soldier, 
coupled with the inveighing sentiment that 
his honour had been stained, without any 
chance of military revenge being left, — that 
was the cause of Franck's untimely end.* 



* The officers of the Dutch army will probably read 
with interest the following details connected with this 
remarkable suicide. Franck and the colonel command- 
ing the regiment, afterwards Major- General Hulst, were 
inveterate deadly foes. There never transpired a word 
of enmity in their private correspondence, but it 
existed nevertheless. Their antipathetical difference 
in character, disposition, temper, and career originated 
it. Franck never could forget that Colonel Jan Hulst 
was nothing but a simple apothecary in 1813, and owed 
his rapid promotions, not to military virtue, but to civil 
acquirements and intrigue. Franck was the type of a 
brave soldier, Hulst that of a clever administrateur. 
What the one was, the other was not. Franck would 
have made an excellent commander of brigade in time 
of war ; Hulst, an eminent minister of war in time of 
peace. I saw myself the confidential letters in which 
the command of the Algemeen Depot der Zandmagf, 
No. 33, was positively promised to Franck. What- 
ever may have been the plot against his nomination, 
the ministry of that time was much to blame. A man 
who always kept his word, he surely deserved that a 
minister should be a man of his word with him. 
Lieutenant- Colonel Franck assured me over and over 



ITS PRESS, EXSTGS, AXD FRISOXS. 



71 



He had been for the last nine years the first 
commanding officer in Groningen. As soon 
as peace had been definitely concluded, the 
staff of the regiment was ordered to the 
same place, and the colonel commanding 



again that Colonel Hulst, and he alone, was his calum- 
niator. On one evening, I believe in February, 1840, 
I found him dreadfully agitated. He had been the 
same afternoon in private conversation with the colonel, 
and had plainly explained his griefs. Not receiving a 
satisfactory reply, he had alluded to the use of arms, 
but the colonel had evaded the question. Thereupon he 
had formally challenged him, but no answer was re- 
turned. Such unmanly conduct made him furious, and 
he flung his glove in the colonel's face. But even that 
could not move the colonel. Franck then jumped up 
and intended to force him to accept fight in the colonel's 
own room, where all this took place, but Hulst dexter- 
ously rang the bell, the adjutant- lieutenant appeared, 
and Colonel Hulst wished Lieutenant-Colonel Franck 
a good evening, smiling as if the interview had been of 
the friendliest kind. On that fatal afternoon the brave 
man broke his heart. " What can I do," said he, " he 
is my superior. I have now tried the last expedient ; 
I have no choice more!" . . . Exactly 
two years afterwards I was conversing with Major- 
General Hulst, then retired on his pension in Nym- 
wegen. He contradicted nearly all the above state- 
ments ; told me that Franck had even paid him a visit 



72 



HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 



the regiment was from that moment the 
principal military authority. Foreseeing 
that issue. Lieutenant- Colonel Franck had 
applied for and obtained, more than a year 
before, a special audience with the minister 
of war, who gave him his w r ord that, event- 
ually, the command of the general depot 
of the land forces, No. 33, in Hardenw r yke, 
should be given to him. But intrigue con- 
spired against his prospects ; the minister 
forgot what he had so faithfully promised, 
and Franck was appointed local commandant 
of Breda. 

Franck was a beautiful model of hero-like 
countenance and deportment, and had, al- 
though fifty years of age, all the vigour, 
health, and activity of a man of forty. To 

after having been in Breda, to take the local command 
of that town and fortress, and during his short leave of 
absence in Groningen had applied for his advice how to 
behave against the officers who made it a custom to 
walk in plain clothes through the streets, &c. Wlio 
spoke the truth ? On the day that the noble soldier 
should have returned to Breda, his mutilated corpse 
was buried, without any military honours, in a corner 
of the new churchyard near Groningen. 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 73 

be doomed under such circumstances to hold 
a sinecure, to live, as he called it, " the life 
of a snail," all in consequence of disgraceful 
cabal, was too much for that open, that gen- 
erous, that true soldier's heart. He shot 
himself on Whitsunday, 1840, in the same 
room where he said to me, " Let them not 
try to humiliate and to exasperate me ; my 
children are grown up ; and for them and 
my wife provision is made. As regards my- 
self, I have nothing serious upon my con- 
science, and I can appear at any time before 
my God." Nobody, not even his own wife ? 
suspected that behind the placid and serene 
physiognomy of that beloved and respected 
man a design of self-destruction was ripen- 
ing. 

The Dutch army and navy, each taken as 
a body, are comparatively in an efficient 
and good disciplined condition. Old soldiers 
of Xapoleon have imparted the true mili- 
tary spirit into the army, and the esprit de 
corps has survived the introduction of hetero- 
geneous elements. The campaign of 1830 
proved that when enthusiasm quickens his 



74 



HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS | 



step, the Dutch soldier, reckless of life, is 
obstinate in the fight, and will conquer or 
die. The navy, although it has irretrievably 
lost its glorious, republican prestige of the 
seventeenth century, still preserves that in- 
trepidity and heroic courage, which distin- 
guished it in the days of De Euyter, Trump, 
Yan Galen, Tan Nes, and so many other 
naval celebrities. But it must at the same 
time be avowed that nepotism and favourit- 
ism, which, as before stated, pervade all 
other branches of the public service, are 
also cancerating the army and navy. If it 
is a general rule that reward ought to be 
bestowed upon merit alone, especially is the 
system applicable to the military forces of a 
country. That mean and soldier-dishonour- 
ing practice of purchasing commissions is 
abolished everywhere except in Great 
Britain ; but the appointing of young and 
inexperienced or unmeritorious men, belong- 
ing to place-hunting and caballing families, 
to the most coveted situations and employ- 
ments in the navy as well as in the army, to 
the prejudice of faithful veterans, crushes the 



ITS PEESS, KINGS, AJTD PRISONS. 75 

martial mind and sows the seed of discontent, 
of which the ultimate results, although not 
attended bv calamities, as in the case of the 
brave Franck, cannot but be highly danger- 
ous to military discipline and efficiency, 



76 



HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



CHAPTEE VI. 

A Drama Composed in a Prison-Cell. — Sufferings in 
Gaol. — Prosecutions against the Tolh der Vryheid. — 
Its Editor Liberated. 

The three indictments brought against me 
were these : the riotous jollity of other persons 
at the Groningen fair, the general terror of 
the Tolh der Vryheid, and the existence of a 
piece of paper, discovered in my study, 
relating to a project of a republican associa- 
tion. The nature of that midnight squabble 
has already been described. I had taken no 
part in it, and those who had, and had been 
arrested, were, with the exception of Bolt, 
liberated. As for the general tenor of the 
Tolh, there was not a single paragraph in 
that paper suggestive of civil war, devasta- 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 77 



tion, murder, or plunder, or exciting to sedi- 
tion, rebellion, or revolution. Hence the 
accusation did not point out any particular 
article or even expression, but took the 
" general tenor." !STow, as regards that 
every royalistic crew with dismal choking 
incubus " republic," well that word was 
written on a small piece of tawny foolscap, 
headed, as before stated, " Project of an as- 
sociation called the Eepublican Association, 55 
and they had extracted the sacrilegious docu- 
ment, in the shape of a chiffon, from a hamper 
containing nothing but waste paper. To 
wit, a most honourable trio, forming the 
quint-essence of the districts-tribunal (arron- 
disements-regtbanh) had been raking through 
my books and papers during no less than 
thirty full hours. Disappointed at finding 
nothing likely to suit their purpose, they at 
last capsized, topsy-turvy, the old hamper, 
and nothing daunted by the intended des- 
tination of all the rumpled slips, took them 
piecemeal in their delicate hands, and thus it 
was that they made the momentous discovery 
of that serious-looking chiffon, which was at 



78 HOLLAND: ITS institutions; 



once carefully raised from its forlorn place to 
an elevated positionin the sanctuary of justice. 

Under the paternal reign of Willem L, no 
meetings of more than twenty persons were 
allowed to take place. To make that despotic 
arrangement as illusory as possible, a plan 
was drawn out in " the project'' to affiliate 
different societies of twenty persons, by 
forming of each of their directors an asso- 
ciation of twenty persons, and so on. But 
here the project ended. Isot a syllable 
was mentioned about the future proceed- 
ings of the societies or associations. All 
this was a complete blank. Moreover, be- 
sides my name which figured on the paper, 
was that of a candidate in the medicines, as 
chief directors of the embryo association ; 
but he was not arrested. Did not the 
assiduous trio at least find mortars or cannons, 
shot or shell, powder or lead, guns, pistols, 
daggers, or knives in my house, to commit 
wholesale murder, or to commence a civil 
war ? Xo, not even a cane, for I could not 
muster more than one at that time, and that 
one I had taken with me to Harlingen. 



ITS PRESS, KIXGS, AND PRISONS. 79 

The judge of instruction, with his greffier, 
or clerk, had been twice in the prison to 
interrogate me ; but I ridiculed the whole 
transaction. On one of those occasions, I 
told them that some ^papers of importance 
were secreted, and another fruitless search, 
both in my house and that of the pub- 
lisher, followed. On a second occasion, 
I intimated to the clerk that I was sorry for 
what had transpired, but would take care 
to guard against a recurrence of it, provided 
they would allow me to be at large. Per- 
ceiving at last that they had been outwitted, 
and that, instead of intimidating me with the 
prison and their threats of capital punish- 
ment, they had only filled my breast with im- 
mense scorn ; I was thereupon left alone. 

After I had been two weeks in prison, the 
principal actors of the Groningen theatre 
were introduced into my cell, and very 
politely requested me, in the name of the 
directors, to compose a drama, to be repre- 
sented on the 28th August, 1840, in com- 
memoration of the same day of the year 
1672. Groningen has not much of warlike 



80 HOLLAND I ITS INSTITUTIONS * 

renown, neither has she produced any great 
military genius ; but better than either of 
these, she can boast of many learned men, 
who were born within her walls, or belonged 
to her university.* The fortified town, how- 
ever, once sustained a protracted siege, and 
repulsed a powerful enemy, in a manner 
which will for ever redound to her honour. 
That was in 1672. To show his gratitude 
for the hospitality he had enjoyed in Holland, 
as an exile, the base and treacherous English 
king, Charles II., concluded an alliance with 
Louis XIV. of France, the bishop of Munster, 
and the Prince-elector of Cologne. "While 
the English naval forces attacked the Dutch 
fleet, Louis XIY. invaded the southern pro- 
vinces of the republic, and the bishop of 
Munster, with an army of 40,000 men, over- 
ran the eastern and northern parts of the 
unprepared country, taking every town and 
fortress, until he came before Groningen. 
He besieged the place during four weeks, 



* Rudolph Agricola, whose name is familiar to Eng- 
lish savants, was one of them. 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 81 

and bombarded it very heavily. But he was 
so well received as to be compelled to beat a 
disgraceful retreat, after having lost a con- 
siderable number of troops and a great 
quantity of ammunition. The defence of 
Groningen was entrusted to a brave general 
called Kabenhaupt, but the garrison was not 
very strong, and it was mainly to the heroism 
of its inhabitants and of the students that 
the town owed its salvation. Being in pos- 
session of most trustworthy and important 
records, I had, two years previously, pub- 
lished a history of the remarkable siege, and 
was consequently well acquainted with the 
facts relating thereto. The 28th of August, 
the day on which the belligerent bishop broke 
up his camp, had ever afterwards been a day 
of much public rejoicing. The great French 
revolution interrupted these annual festivi- 
ties; but the patriotic spirit of Groningen 
revived them in 1835, and subsequent to that 
time more than one literary celebrity of Gron- 
ingen had composed a drama appropriate to the 
occasion. Some of them had been performed 
at the theatre, but all had not met with such 

G 



82 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 

success as had been anticipated. I confess 
that I felt myself highly flattered by the 
application made by the personnel of the 
stage, so much the more as I could consider 
it a signal proof that my incarceration was 
looked upon rather as distinguishing than as 
disgracing me. There was another reason 
why I accepted the proposal with pleasure. 
I knew that when once I had promised to 
finish the piece early enough to be studied 
for representation, I should have but very 
little time left to brood over the baneful 
iniquity of my persecutors, and thus save 
myself a considerable degree of excitement. 
For although I endeavoured to construe the 
whole shameful affair into a practical joke, 
there were moments, especially when my 
thoughts were riveted upon the end of poor 
Franck, and the uncertainty of the duration 
of my confinement, that I could not restrain 
myself ; and more than once an involuntary 
roar of rage burst forth from my cell, and 
resounded through the most remote apart- 
ments of the abode of desolation. Meanwhile 
I was busily engaged in the composition of 



ITS TRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 83 

the drama, and scarcely a single day passed 
that I had not the pleasure of some company. 
These visits could not be long, but neverthe- 
less they were very agreeable. Even ladies, 
whom I had previously known only by sight, 
honoured me with their cheering presence ; 
and I was at first not a little surprised to 
find, every time the tender sex had quitted 
my cell, letters, verses, wine, and even 
beefsteaks concealed in my bed. The gaoler, 
knowing who they were, did not think proper 
to ask them, on crossing his threshold, whe- 
ther they had anything contraband about 
them ; and although there was always a turn- 
key in my presence when a visitor came, 
they so well contrived to stow their presents 
clandestinely between my blankets, as almost 
to induce me to believe they had been accus- 
tomed to prison- life. Never was a beefsteak 
despatched with a better mixture of gastro- 
nomic and sympathetic delight; and never was 
a sparkling glass of wine filled to the honour 
of the female sex, and on which a bright 
eye shone, drunk with more enthusiasm ! 
There was not of course the slightest 

g 2 



84 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

secret about the whole accusations concocted 
against my publisher, Bolt, and myself; 
we were, nevertheless, not allowed to see or 
to write to each other. But we kept up a 
regular correspondence for all that. It was 
permitted that we could change our books, 
which we pretended to read alternately, 
whenever we chose. I wrote, the first time, 
within the cover of the book I sent to Bolt, 
a certain number, indicating the page where, 
as I had told him by another prisoner who 
occasionally saw him, he had to commence 
studying. There he found every letter re- 
quired to spell the words I had to convey to 
him, perforated with a sharp-pointed pin, and 
by holding the paper against the light he 
could easily make out all that I had to com- 
municate, and Bolt wrote to me in the same 
manner. At the conclusion of every letter we 
gave the number of the page we intended to 
commence next time. The morose gaoler was 
very particular in matters of communication ; 
he always carefully examined the books him- 
self before he passed them from one prisoner 
to the other, but the wily fellow never sus- 



ITS PHESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 85 

pected that he had all along been our letter- 
carrier ! 

Not satisfied, as it would appear, with 
charging me with high treason, and with 
giving me the perspective of my death on a 
gibbet, the gallant Tribunal of Groningen 
threw a few more accusations into the bar- 
gain. They asserted, as the summoner told me 
— for I would not even touch the abominable 
papers myself — that I had committed libel, 
as well against the burgomaster of the village 
Ten Boer, as against my friend King Wil- 
lem I. I must here remark, that the slight- 
est insult, or what the Dutch judges can 
twist to something like it, in reference to 
such a personage as their royal master, is 
constituted a libel ; and he who in Holland 
says " Down with the King !" without even 
addible elucidation whether he means the 
King residing in the Hague, or his confrere 
in Honolulu, is unmercifully condemned to 
an imprisonment of two years as minimum, 
and to five years as maximum. Such is the 
soft, paternal chastisement for the first delin- 
quency ; for the second and following, an 



86 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 

ascending scale is put into requisition. If I 
recollect rightly, I had offended the old 
crown-bearer by stating that, in the latter 
part of November, 1813, on his arrival from 
England to Schevemingen, he was not worth 
half-a-crown, and had so cleverly managed 
his affairs that in twenty-five years from that 
time he had scraped together and hoarded np 
above two hundred millions of guilders ; that 
he had not too faithfully adhered to the 
spirit of the constitution, defective as it was ; 
and that, perhaps, the inhabitants of North 
Netherland would have been in better cir- 
cumstances if they had followed the example 
set them by South Netherland in 1830, in- 
stead of spending their money and spilling 
their blood in defence of Orange-Nassau. 
The accusation regarding libel committed 
against the burgomaster or mayor of the 
village of Ten Boer, produces a striking 
illustration of Dutch equity, and of what now 
constitutes the crime of libel in a country 
once renowned for its freedom of the press. 
A provincial resolution, confirmed by the 
central government, had declared that all 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 87 

children above five years of age, if not pre- 
vented by illness, should be sent to school, 
to receive primitive education in reading, 
writing, and arithmetic, and that the cost of 
such tuition, in case the parents could not 
afford the payment, should be borne by the 
parish. This regulation in itself was very 
commendable. But it frequently happened 
that the few good institutions of Holland were 
perverted by the arrogance and tyranny of 
petty despots. So it was at Ten Boer. A 
poor labourer, residing in the village, whose 
wages amounted to sixpence a-day, owed a 
few shillings schoolmoney for two of his 
children, and having no means whatever of 
his own, he applied to the burgomaster to be 
exonerated from payment. Instead, however, 
of arranging matters with his assessors, to 
defray the small debt of the poor man out of 
the parochial funds, bills were posted all over 
the village announcing that the labourer's fur- 
niture would be sold by public authority. I 
was informed of what was going on, and 
caused a gentleman to be present at the 
sale, and to act according to circumstances. 



88 HOLLAND: ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 

He found the family in misery and despair. 
It was in the morning of the day that 
the sale was to take place. The mother 
was sitting at a small table — the only one 
they had — her face suffused with tears, en- 
deavouring to find consolation in the pages 
of the Bible ; whilst the father and his 
children were looking around as if they 
dreaded at every moment the greatest cala- 
mity which could befall them. Indeed they 
had nothing in the world but what that hut 
contained. The hour of the public auction 
drew near, and higher and higher rose their 
intense anguish. At length the sale had 
concluded. The amount of the debt was 
five shillings and eightpence. To recover 
that amount the parish — that is, the rate- 
payers — were charged, for different expenses 
connected with the sale, the sum of one 
pound twelve shillings, in such a way sacri- 
ficed and misemployed by their burgomaster. 
But for the Tolk der Vryheid the industrious 
family would have been degraded to vaga- 
bonds. In the name of the direction of the 
Tolk, all the confiscated articles were bought 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 89 

up and returned to the poor creatures. I, 
moreover, set a subscription on foot, and not 
long afterwards the labourer, his wife and chil- 
dren, were in better circumstances than they 
had ever been before. * It was very natural 
that I should expose the conduct of such a ma- 
gistrate. After having given an exact account 
of my interference in the unhappy affair, I 
more especially called the attention of my 
readers to the huffish and inhuman treatment 
the poor inhabitants of Ten ]ioer had been 
subjected to by him who should have been 
the first to protect them ; and I further gave 
it as my opinion, that if burgomasters were 
chosen by the citizens or by the inhabitants 
themselves, instead of by the king, such 
monstrosities would probably never occur. 
I described the conduct of the magistrate as 
scandalous, barbarous, and inhuman ; and 
without overlooking becoming decency, made 



* Even the Katholyke Nederlandsche Stemmen, then 
a ver}- interesting hebdomadal production, published in 
Grave (or de Graafe), although exclusively devoted to 
Catholic interests, forwarded its contribution to the re- 
lief of the wretched family. 



90 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

use of the strongest terms of indignation. 
The burgomaster himself was very coy after 
publicity had been given to his culpable 
behaviour, undoubtedly fully convinced that, 
to stigmatize it deservedly, too much could 
not possibly be said. He seemed even to be 
ashamed of the affair, and commenced a bet- 
ter line of conduct towards his villagers. 
But the myrmidons of the Dutch justice were 
not satisfied. They came forward with arti- 
cle 222 of the penal code, stipulating that 
anybody who verbally or in writing offends 
a public officer, either in the execution of 
his functions, or on account of that execution, 
should be sent to gaol. The Dutch justices 
do not want the assent of the quasi-offended 
party ; without an3 r complaint of the latter, 
they go to work on their own accord. They 
exult in the power they possess to commit 
any one to prison for a term of two years, 
who, speaking of a public officer, and allud- 
ing to his official acts, only says that he 
behaved badly, or something equivalent to 
such an expression. In the case I have 
alluded to, I was prosecuted, and, as here- 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 91 



after will be seen, condemned, although. I 
had saved an unfortunate despairing family 
from ruin, and substituted comfort and glad- 
ness into their dwelling ; although I had 
made of the burgomaster, who constantly 
declined to appear against me, a seemingly 
better man. All my exertions the Gronin- 
gen districts-tribunal deemed worthy of being 
rewarded with imprisonment. Is not that a 
striking illustration of Dutch equity ? 

I had never seen, nor did I know, the 
Groningen gaol-keeper before I was sent to 
prison. He was, however, instinctively my 
foe, and I had more than one opportunity of 
convincing myself that he would be only too 
happy to place me in another cell. The heart 
of that mean, sullen, peevish dwarf delighted 
in the abjectedness of his prisoners, and the 
deep-drawn sigh of a lamenting man, or the 
sobs and throes of a wretched woman, created a 
corresponding degree of hellish rapture in the 
perpendicular furrows of his yellow, long, 
and thin, but squabbish, down-hanging 
cheeks. Two years before I fell into his 
hands, a certain Okko Kluin, a young crimi- 



y ^ HOLLAND ! ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 

nal, had been condemned to death, and, 
according to what I was informed by one 
of the warders, the gaol-keeper had on that 
occasion spent hours together, listening 
at the door of the unfortunate culprit's cell, 
after he had been informed that there was 
no hope on earth left for him, and he every 
night burst out into the most piercing screams 
and tremulous shrieks of agony. On my 
being released from the guardianship of this 
Cerberus, he could not help exclaiming — 
have never been glad when one of my pri- 
soners was liberated. You make an excep- 
tion; I am happy to see you go." In that 
expression lay the misanthrope's soul — if 
soul he had. He was happy that I left, 
because I had been unsubdued, and had 
had courage to rebel at the vile attempts to 
dishearten me. 

It was about the sixth week of mv occu- 
pancy of the best room in the gaol, when the 
keeper came hurriedly in. telling me that I 
had at once to shift to another cell. I was 
just then diligently working at the most 
difficult part of my drama, and requested. 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 93 

therefore, to have my delogement postponed. 
The reason, however, which I assigned for 
the postponement was exactly the principal 
reason he had for my being removed without 
a moment's delay. By what means I know 
not, but somehow the gaol-keeper had pre- 
vailed upon the overseers of the prison to 
grant his application for my removal. I 
had, of course, nothing to do but to submit. 
Left to his tender mercy, I was hurled with 
my books and papers into the narrowest hole 
the prison contained, a cell in which, usually, 
the dirtiest and filthiest thieves and vagrants 
were locked up. It was about five feet wide 
by nine feet long, and facing the yard. As 
in every other cell, there was a closet in that 
small place ; and when I lay down on the 
floor, with a handful of straw under my 
aching limbs, either my head or my feet 
touched it. Too disdainful to lament or com- 
plain, I conformed myself again to circum- 
stances. I never ate but when the keenest 
hunger was torturing my stomach ; I never 
drank but when my throat was nearly burn- 
ing, and my lips parched with thirst. For- 



94 HOLLAND: ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

tunately the sun only darted his beams into 
that dreadful cachot during an hour or two 
daily. Fortunately also I could keep the 
window open by night as well as by day. 
Not once was it shut during the time I had 
to breathe the loathsome exhalations and 
the putrefied air of that cell, where there 
was no ventilation whatever, not eyen 
sufficient to drive away the smallest particle 
of the poisonous evaporations, other than 
through the agency of my lungs. In that 
den, nevertheless, I finished my work for 
the Groningen theatre. I completed it by 
constantly writing from daybreak till the 
time the greater part of the prisoners went 
to the spinning-room, opposite my cell. 
Then the rough imprecations, the vulgar 
quarrels, and the lewd songs of some forty or 
fifty wretches, prevented every attempt to 
form a series of ideas. During the time I 
was kept in this place, I could see nobody 
but in the common speaking-room, where 
visitors usually communicated with the 
prisoners. At first the gaoler refused me 
all access ; but the actors having been 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AXD PRISONS- 95 

informed where I was, forced a way for 
themselves to the yard, and asked me 
whether I approved of their intention to 
report the keeper's conduct to the proper 
quarter. The scoundrel himself followed, and 
I told him imperatively that he had better 
allow me to communicate with them, or to 
expect the consequences of his breach of duty 
and meanness. He hesitated for a moment, 
but soon unlocked the stench hole. From 
that day I apostrophised him, and treated 
him with burlesque and contempt on every 
occasion that offered. Before long the effect 
this had on the other prisoners was manifest ; 
his appearance produced a ferocious yell, and 
at last neither he, nor his wife or daughters, 
ventured again into the yard. 

It was a beautiful evening, — the evening 
of Saturday, the 1st of August, 18.40. I 
stood gazing through the apertures of the 
window of my dreary abode. The last 
visible cloud had disappeared, and darkness 
had begun to cover the hemisphere. The 
occupants of the prison were gone to their 
hammocks, and all was silent as death. The 



96 HOLLAND! ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 

events of the past few weeks were passing 
through my mind. It was nearly ten o'clock, 
when a warder appeared and requested me to 
follow him into the office, where my presence 
was required. I found there, in company 
with the gaoler, the same summoner whom 
I had seen on my arrival at the prison. He 
had received orders to communicate to my 
publisher and myself that we were free ! 
"Without any condemnation we had been 
incarcerated ; without any trial or acquittal 
we were liberated ! Seventy horrible days 
were gone. Seventy days were required by 
Dutch justice to discover, with the most 
valuable royalistic intentions in the world, 
that they could not send us for trial, — 
nothing existing to be tried. And these 
seventy days of liberty were stolen from us 
without our having any claim for the slightest 
redress. Other persons, when the order for 
their release was given, quitted the prison 
by day time ; but as our incarceration had 
made a general sensation, we were not 
allowed to leave before late in the night. 
The order for our arrest had been made as 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 97 

public as possible ; the order for our discharge 
was kept as private as possible. Thousands 
of persons accompanied us to the gaol ; not 
a single individual went with us from there 
to our homes. We were noiselessly, se- 
cretly, smuggled out of the prison into which 
we had been thrown, with all the imposing 
display and ostentation of a pack of gallows- 
dogs, as the Groningen policemen were called. 



ft 



98 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



CHAPTEE VII. 

Major Van Baerle. — Plan of a Ee volution and Over- 
throw of the Dynasty of Orange Nassau. — Belgian 
Newspapers. — Eeckma, Zielker, and Rienks, Collobo- 
rateurs to the Tolh. — Its Editor sentenced to Five 
Years' Imprisonment. — Jan Bolt, the publisher. 

I "went quietly home on the evening of 
my deliverance, The fresh night-air, inhaled 
after ten week's close confinement, made me 
giddy. Not having slept a single hour con- 
secutively all the time I had been locked up, 
owing to the foetid fumes which hung on the 
condensed evaporations of the moisty soil of 
that sickening den, I longed for a good 
night's rest and the refreshment of a clean 
and well-aired bed. The next morning I 
went to the house of Major Van Baerle. I 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 99 

did not find him at home, but was told that 
he had gone to one of his farm-houses, about 
three miles from town. I decided on going 
thither, and paying him my first visit, as he 
had been the foremost of all to soften the 
hardships of my confinement, and take care 
that I was well provided with the commodi- 
ties which a gaol existence could afford, 
ilajor Yan Baerle was, in common life, one 
of the most irritable, and, when excited, 
violent tempers. Not nature, commerce 
with men had made him so. Cruel disap- 
pointment and sad experience, which would 
have turned the head of an ordinary man, 
had given him an exasperated character, and 
a propensity to quarrel, even about mere 
trifles. Yan Baerle had served with dis- 
tinction in the cavalry, but having, on 
different occasions, disagreed with his supe- 
rior, a man of very slender capacity, owing 
his position to a relation at court, he became 
disgusted with the service and retired into 
private life. He was himself of an ancient 
noble family ; but he hated and despised the 
aristocracy, both of birth and of money, to 



100 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

au extreme degree. He avoided all inter- 
course with persons making a claim of 
belonging to the so-called higher classes, and 
especially the haughty descendants of those 
blood-suckers of the Dutch nation, who, half- 
starved in Germany during the disgusting 
sway of the last stadtholder, coxcomb 
Willem Y., poured into Holland, with 
nothing in the world but the words Kerr 
and Von before their names, and found a 
ready protector and supporter in that scourge 
of the last days of the republic of the United 
Provinces — the Duke of Brunswick — the 
friend of the stadtholder's wife. The au- 
thorities, and, in fact, nearly all the 
public employes in Groningen, were well 
acquainted with Van Baerle's inflammable 
temper, but instead of letting him alone, as 
he did others when not provoked, they 
played him all possible vexatious tricks, 
whenever they had an opportunity of doing 
so, and it was at any time very rare that he 
was not entangled in one or another process 
of law. Just as he never appeared in any 
particular aristocratic circle, so he did not 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 101 

frequent places of ordinary public resort. It 
was only accidentally that he ever entered 
any hotel or public-houses ; but if it hap- 
pened that he fell amongst a lot of old, 
steady smokers and submissive clerks, he 
soon made them decamp, by his cursing the 
government, censuring Orange Nassau, and 
vilifying the aristocracy. Major Yan Baerle, 
however, was quite another man in his own 
house, where repose, calmness, and happiness 
reigned, and his passions slumbered. His 
dutiful wife and his obedient children loved 
and respected him, and, surrounded by these 
dear ties, he enjoyed quiet, comfort, and 
contentment. I usually spent one or two 
afternoons of the week with them, and had 
always excellent entertainment. Yan Baerle 
was a tall, thin person, had a dark, penetrat- 
ing eye, and a lively mien and gait. He 
was not only a thorough theoretical but also 
a practical soldier. He had a vast amount of 
general knowledge, and was an adept at 
politics. We commonly discussed a subject 
of public interest, and after having agreed 
upon the different points, composed an article 



] 02 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

for the Talk der Vryheid, comprising the drift 
of the conclusions our deliberations had led 
us into. It was very natural that in those 
davs of excitement and incertitude our dis- 
courses chiefly turned on the delicate ques- 
tion of revolution. We were of the same 
opinion about the " desirability" of the re- 
establishment of the Republic, confederate 
but more centralized than the commonwealth 
of the Seven United Provinces, with per- 
petual banishment of Orange Xassau, abo- 
lition of aristocracy, and emancipation of the 
toiling classes. Yan Baerle was a man of 
property, and could have raised a large 
amount of money, the nervus rerum of such 
enterprises ; he possessed all the military 
talent and tact to organize a revolutionary 
army ; he had a clear insight into the artifi- 
cial construction of state machinery, but he 
had against him, in the preparation of his 
plan, want of sufficient popularity, and in 
the execution the commonly- entertained 
belief that he would be too cruel and spill 
too much blood. We oftentimes maturely 
investigated the pros and cons of the 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 103 

undertaking ; but I always hesitated to come 
to a positive understanding and resolution 
with him. Yan Baerle was exulted on 
seeing me unexpectedly restored to liberty. 
He did all that he could to make the first 
day of my re-appearance a feast for me, and 
I spent a happy Sunday in his company. 

Late in the evening of the Saturday, 
exactly a week after my discharge from 
prison, I received an anonymous invitation 
to assist at a secret meeting of persons, all — 
as the invitation ran — devoted to the interests 
I had in view. The text of the epistle was 
couched in rather mysterious terms. I 
resolved, nevertheless, to attend at the place 
appointed, which was in the vicinity of the 
gaol. I was ushered into a large room, the 
windows of which appeared to be hermetically 
closed ; for there was no other light than 
that of half a dozen tapers. The principal 
wall was covered with black drapery, and 
the ensemble had a solemn aspect. About 
twenty persons were assembled, only three or 
four of whom I had ever conjointly spoken 
to, the greater number being entirely un- 



104 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

known to me. One of the former pointed 
out his Mends to me, and gave me their 
names and other particulars. When I had 
"been introduced to all, I was informed that 
they were assembled, and had invited me 
to that room to hear my opinion about a 
plan for at once overturning the existing 
government. The whole scheme was then 
laid before me, and every required explanation 
given. It would be uninteresting to the 
reader to enter into all the details of that 
complicated conspiracy. But the most im- 
portant arrangements were, that the wooden 
stables of the cavalry (unoccupied, as there 
was no cavalry then in Groningen), standing 
at the north-east side of the Ebbingeboog, 
should be set on fire, and that the flames 
should be the signal for opening the town- 
gates for the armed men from different parts 
of the province, four to five thousand of 
whom could be relied upon ; that so soon as 
a part of the garrison, which was not strong, 
should arrive at the scene of the conflagra- 
tion, the general alarm should be given by 
chiming and tolling the bells, and sending 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 105 

escorted drummers through the streets ; that 
the moment a sufficient number of men had 
flocked together a rush should be made on 
the magazines and arsenals, and that a gene- 
ral armament of the inhabitants should im- 
mediately follow; that then the military 
barracks should be attacked, and the soldiers, 
who were for the greater part belonging to 
the town or the province of Groningen, 
should be invited and summoned to make 
common cause with the republicans, or to 
depose their arms and go to their homes, and 
that at the same time the town-house should 
be opened and invested (occupied) by a pro- 
visional government, sitting in permanency- 
One of the first acts of this government was 
to be the proclamation of the republic of the 
Netherlands, with an appeal to all patriots 
to join their Groningen brethren, or to fol- 
low their example. The town once in pos- 
session of the republicans, a flying corps was 
to be immediately organised for the country 
around Groningen, to enlist every volunteer 
coming from other provinces. Many soldiers, 
without exactly knowing what was plotted 



106 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



in the dark, had received intimation that, in 
ease of civil troubles, their imitating and 
assisting the inhabitants would be beneficial 
to them. Others had relations or friends 
amongst the citizens, and their aid was se- 
cured beforehand. The individuals entrusted 
with the keeping of the ammunition, of which 
there was a large stock after the disbanding 
of the majority of the army, in 1839, were 
on the side of the republicans, and muskets, 
cannons, lead and powder could be obtained 
without even a skirmish. All the main 
streets of Groningen end in the large market- 
place, on which was (and is still) situated 
the new and spacious Town-hall. The mili- 
tary hospital is near the market-place, but 
the perspicuity of "Willenr s government had 
allowed the principal barracks, then occupied, 
to be erected as much as possible at the ex- 
tremity of the fortified place. If even the 
entire garrison, which was highly impro- 
bable, had turned against the rising, success 

7 C 1 O 7 

must, reasonably speaking, have favoured 
the conspirators, inasmuch as for every 
street leading to the market-place a com- 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 107 

mittee of a few trustworthy persons was 
appointed, who had to guard the egresses as 
soon as ordered. " Although/' said one of 
the company, " you have not heard from us 
during your captivity, we have counted the 
days you suffered in that dreadful edifice, 
not far from here. What we have prepared 
— what we have done — you see. We sub- 
mit our work to you." There was a pause 
for a few seconds, when another rose and 
spoke to this effect: " As far as we can 
judge, everything is ready. We only want 
a head and a will. The time is come ; the 
circumstances we have to go through may 
be difficult ; events may intervene requiring 
superior ability, a sound mind and firmness. 
The command of the new state of things 
cannot be entrusted but to a man of the 
people, — an enemy to our oppressors, and a 
friend of liberty and progress. He must 
have the knowledge to concert and the 
courage to carry out his measures." After 
more introductory and explanatory speeches, 
it was proposed that I should be the leader 
of the insurrection and the dictator of the 



108 



HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 



provisional government. " No better oppor- 
tunity," continued another, addressing him- 
self to me, "could ever have offered itself. 
You deliver the nation from degrading thral- 
dom, open brighter prospects, revive the 
spirits and reanimate the hearts of thousands 
now groaning under dishonouring servitude. 
Now or never is the time. Let us be what 
our forefathers were, — warm patriots and 
stubborn republicans. A handful of Water* 
gcnzen conquered, two hundred and seventy 
years ago, the small sea-port Den Briel, and 
from that day the doom of Spanish tyranny 
was decided in our country. Our ancestors 
fought eighty years for their rights and free- 
dom ; let the cry of liberty now be raised 
from our important town, — from the north 
instead of from the south, — and we may 
drive Orange Nassau in as many days from 
our shores. You hold at the same time the 
means of revenge in your hands ; punish 
those worse than worthless beings who, in 
the garb of priests of Themis, trample on 
right and law, and cringe as slaves at the 
feet of a mouldered throne, surrounded by 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 109 

vice, and kept together by mean and base 
flatterers, who fatten upon the sweat and 
blood of the laborious Dutchman !" 

I hesitated in giving a decided answer. I 
insisted upon delay, in order to have a few 
days for consideration ; but the reply was, 
that all preparations and arrangements had 
been made in such a way that no delay could 
be thought of, and that the only question 
was my yes or no. They had fancied I 
would not have hesitated a moment in ac- 
cepting their offer, but would receive and 
adhere to the plan with an enthusiasm at 
least equal to their own. They had flat- 
tered themselves that I should have been 
agreeably surprised at finding that every- 
thing was ready and solely waiting for me. 
I gave them to understand that, as the con- 
spiracy was set on foot not only without my 
participating in it, but, likewise, without 
my knowledge, I had a perfect right to act 
as I thought proper, not being bound by 
any ties. The noblest intentions had, doubt- 
less, actuated and prompted them to action, 
and, unacquainted with my character, they 



110 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

had counted upon my readiness. But cer- 
tainly I must know whether I considered 
myself able to regulate a revolution haying 
for its object the overthrow of nearly all the 
existing institutions, and the introduction of 
new ones in their place. My courage was 
perhaps adequate to the task, but my ex- 
perience was not. I had seriously to con- 
sider what amount of responsibility I under- 
took by accepting their proposal uncondi- 
tionally. That responsibility involved from 
the very outset the lives of hundreds and 
thousands of my fellow-countrymen. I 
therefore felt compelled to decline the offer 
for the present, requested them to postpone 
the execution of their plans, to keep every- 
thing as secret as possible, and to dispose of 
me the moment another province or town 
rose in arms, or as soon as we together had 
agreed upon and fixed a day for the engage- 
ment. 

The reasons which I assigned for my ne- 
gative reply were unobjectionable. There 
were other considerations which I kept to 
myself. It occurred to me that among the 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AXD PRISONS. Ill 



conspirators there might be one or more 
bribed to lav a trap for me, in order that 
justice might substantiate the reality, for 
the shadow of which she had not shrunk to 
threaten me with capital punishment. I 
could not positively know at that time, as 
I knew later, that those apprehensions had 
no foundation, and that all the conspirators 
were of good faith. The fact also that I 
had no men of my own choice around me 
to share the accomplishment of the work, 
and that I had taken no part in the forma- 
tion of the plot myself, held me back from 
taking a precipitate resolution. Even the 
interview I had had with De Kempenaer 
had some weight in the scale of my delibe- 
rations. 

To attempt to prove here that the enter- 
prise must have been crowned with suc- 
cess, — circumstances of a most extraordinary 
kind excepted, — would surpass the limits of 
this book. I can, however, say that, as re- 
gards myself, I afterwards had not the 
slightest doubt as to the result. The issue, 
I am confident, could not but have been in 



112 HOLLAND ! ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



our favour, had I at once taken the lead of 
the conspiracy. Disinterested and patriotic 
men, of ability and influence would, as I 
subsequently ascertained, have joined us at 
the first outbreak. Within three days the 
two Northern provinces would have been in 
arms and in open revolt, and it was very 
probable that other provinces would have fol- 
lowed the example. 

The Tolk der Vryheid soon made its re- 
appearance, and subscribers poured in from 
all parts. The glaring injustice of my im- 
prisonment was in this respect attended by 
pleasing consequences. I put myself in cor- 
respondence with Eepublican parties in other 
countries. The Patriate Beige, published in 
Brussels, and edited by Adolphe Bartels, — 
one of the few Belgian Eepublicans who 
never deserted his banner — regularly trans- 
lated and re-produced the most important 
leaders of the Tolk. The Vaderlander, a 
Flemish newspaper published in Ghent, the 
Wekker, another Flemish periodical, did the 
same. Collaborateurs or contributors offered 
themselves from all parts. The most active 



ITS PBES3, KINGS, AXD PRISONS. 113 



of them, not writing under a pseudo-name, 
were Eeekma, a doctor of medicine in Hose- 
zand ; Jan Freerks Zielken, a farmer in New 
Beerta ; and Pdenks, a schoolmaster in Wes- 
terkwartier, all in the province of Gro- 
ningen. Doctor Eeekma was an indefati- 
gable writer, and, although he had an ex- 
tensive practice as a medical man, penned 
many excellent articles for my journal. He 
preferred criticising provincial regulations 
and bye-laws, which, on the Continent, not 
unfrequently exceed in vexatiousness the 
instructions of despotic governments. He 
was a clever and honest man, always acting 
according to his convictions. Selfishness was 
unknown to him ; he was an able advocate, 
not for his own but for the public interest. 
The -farmer proved to be of another alloy. 
At the time he commenced writing for the 
ToUc, he was more a raisonneur than a rhe- 
torician, and so he continued to be. He had 
a good deal of general knowledge, but very 
superficial knowledge it was, and so that con- 
tinued to be. As, however, the democratic 
element was prominent in his writings, I 



114 HOLLAND! ITS INSTITUTIONS ) 

inserted them after careful clipping, weed- 
ing, and grafting. He was delighted when 
lie saw " J. F. Zylker " printed under his 
metamorphosed articles, dressed up in a 
republican style, of which he himself did 
not possess the mould. The Tolk tier Vry- 
heid gave him popularity, and with that 
popularity he wandered, during the revolu- 
tionary days of 1848, into the Stat en-Gene- 
ral, where he has ever since retained a seat. 
Ensuing pages will give a better insight 
into the character of the man. Mr. Eienks 
— I called him my friend iEsopus* — was 
not so fortunate, although more witty than 
Mr. Zylker. He once inserted in an article 
the letter W, with five points behind it, and 
the Dutch judge said that could mean no- 
thing but Willem, — of course, King Wil- 
lem, — and sentenced him to four months' 

* On account of his exterior, as well as for his alle- 
gorical poetry. His verses on the occasion of the abdi- 
cation of Willem I., — " De Kapiteiu van het schip 
Yeduld draagt het gezag aan Ziju Zoon op." " The 
master of the vessel 1 Patience ' gives the command up 
to his son," which I published in the jToIJc, was re- 
ceived with much applause. 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 115 



imprisonment for every point, as well as 
for the W, making a general total of two 
years, during which time the poor school- 
master was locked up in the central house 
of correction in Hoorn. Eienks would pro* 
bably have made a better representative than 
Zylker; it was, however, not his destiny, 
and he returned, after an execrable confine- 
ment amongst malefactors, to his former vo- 
cation of rural schoolmaster. 

The effect the journal created in Groningen 
became daily more manifest. Petty tyrants 
who knew themselves hated by the people 
never ventured into the streets after sunset. 
Accumulators of sinecures and unscrupulous 
hoarders of government salaries and bounties 
were shouted at in the broad face of day- 
light, with the epithet " Landopreters " — 
"Devourers of the Country." Xo cavalry 
had been stationed in Groningen during the 
last twenty years, but half a regiment of 
Lancers now came unexpectedly, reinforcing 
the garrison. Their appearance created 
quite a sensation, but caused no disturb- 
ances. 



116 



HOLLAND I ITS IXSIITtTIOXS J 



My drama, " Rabenhaupt/ 3 was duly per- 
formed on the 2 8 tli of August, and was 
much applauded. Four weeks had elapsed 
since the supper put clown in my stinking 
cell consisted of dry rye-bread and water ; 
after the theatrical representation that even- 
ing, I sat down with a select company in 
a splendid saloon, partaking of a sumptuous 
supper, the joyous libations of which lasted 
till the next morning. ITeanwkile, the 
Groningen District-Tribunal did not forget 
me nor the wafelkraam-TeYolutioiij as repre- 
sented by my publisher, Jan Bolt. The 
principal enactors of that nocturnal debauch, 
however, were left undisturbed, and no fur- 
ther notice was taken of them. The pub- 
lisher, myself, and only a few other persons, 
had to appear publicly at the bar of that 
formidable court. "With, the onlv exception 
of Bolt and myself, (and Fetz, who died,) 
all were acquitted. One of the accused, a 
young goldsmith, who was pointed out by 
the witnesses as having cried oftener and 
more vehementlv than any other, " Down 
with the Kins; ! " was defended bv a Jewish 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AXD PRISONS. 117 

barrister. That gentleman quoted at least 
fifty times the French adage, " C J est le ton 
qui fait la musique " — " The tune makes the 
music" — at the same time turning the whites 
of his large eyes to the ceiling. The gold- 
smith's throat had acted at the wafelhraam 
crying-concert as vocal trombone, which in- 
duced me to believe that the learned judges 
had a particular predilection for that instru- 
ment, and that the culprit was acquitted for 
the trombone's sake. Perchance, also — who 
knows ? — it was the adage and the whites 
of the barrister's eyes which exculpated the 
goldsmith. The room where the public 
audience was held was so densely crowded, 
that the vitiated air became nearly suffo- 
cating, and the combined perspiration of so 
many individuals made the braces of the 
auditory shine through their coats. About 
dusk, a dense crowd began to surround the 
town-hall, where the District-Tribunal held 
its sittings. A scaffold had already been 
erected outside the wall, before the windows 
of the audience-room, and clusters of heads 
with lurking eyes were thrust through them. 



118 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS; 

At nightfall, small projectiles were flung 
against the building, and the scene was 
becoming more tumultuous, when the pre- 
sident postponed judgment till the next 
week. A jubilant multitude accompanied 
and followed me to the publisher's house, 
which was at a short distance. There they 
waited for a considerable time, but, in order 
to prevent useless demonstrations, I left the 
house by the back door, and made my way 
unnoticed to the society I was in the habit 
of frequenting. The next week the tri- 
bunal of Groningen administered two years' 
imprisonment to the printer and publisher, 
Bolt, and five ditto to me. The tribunal, — 
let it be fairly admitted, — could not well 
have decided otherwise, having previously 
hoped to be able to make out a bill for 
all the vears and clavs of our natural lives. 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AN'D PRISONS. 119 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Further Proceedings against the Tolk. — Abdication of 
Willem I. as King of Xetherland. — Eetrospective 
View of his Reign. — Holland and Belgium and their 
Populations. — The Prince of Orange ascends the 
Throne as TTilleni II. — ^ly Expatriation to Paris. 

Ix correctional cases, like libel, nobody can 
be directly arrested to undergo the sentence 
passed upon him when he appeals to the 
Provincial Court, or when from that court 
he applies for repeal to the High Council. 
If the last body confirms the original 
sentence or the arrest of the provincial 
judges, the execution of it is further 
suspended by the supplication of the con- 
demned to the head of the State for 
grace. In other cases, criminal as well 
as correctional, it is left to the discretion of 



120 EOLLAXD I ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 



the judiciary authorities either to take the 
accused into safe custody, at any time from 
the dav proceedings have been instituted 
against him, or to allow him to remain at 
large. Accordingly, persons of high stand- 
ing in society, or, rather, men who are on 
good terms with the judges, are left in pos- 
session of their liberty during the whole time 
their process is going on ; indifferent indivi- 
duals, though it may be foreseen that they 
have to be acquitted for want of guilt, or of 
sufficient proof, are mercilessly thrown into 
gaol to pine away a certain number of 
days, weeks, and months, between hope and 
fear. 

I consequently appealed to the Provincial 
Court of Groningen. The Toll: continued as 
undaunted after mv five years 5 condemnation 
as before. It grew even bolder, so bold that 
the District-Tribunal of Groningen thought 
proper to prepare another strong dose of im- 
prisonment for its editor. Indeed, a new 
indictment was soon cut out for me — the 
material being again libel against that beloved 
potentate TVillem L About that time the 



ITS PBESSj EI^GS, AM) PEIS0XS. 121 

confidant of the Prince of Orange, Jonker de 
Kempenaer, came unexpectedly into Gronin- 
sen. He assured me that, although I had 
propagated republican ideas, and devoted cay 
journal to the re- establishment of a common- 
wealth, and had not written in favour of the 
heir-presumptive to the throne, I might never- 
theless look upon the prosecution of the zea- 
lous law-explorers from that point of view 
which would he best calculated to excite my 
hilaritv. Willem I. had in those critical 
days a secret personal police as well as his 
son ; and there was spying on both sides. 
The spies themselves spied upon each other 
reciprocally, but the old king's instruments 
did not work so well as the other hands. 
Those of the prince knew from those of the 
king that old Willem did not trust the 
northern provinces at all, and was afraid 
that rebellion against his rule would first 
raise its head in that part of the kingdom. 
The Toll:, therefore, by stimulating the 
popular dissatisfaction, and bringing the 
king a step nearer to the necessity of abdi- 
cating, had promoted the designs of the 



122 



HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



Prince of Orange. All that I had to guard 
against, hinted De Kempenaer, was to avoid 
giving any pretext to the tribunal of 
Groningen for another preventive incarcera- 
tion, and to be out of the way when the 
case of the paper was to be finally decided 
by the High Court. 

Many years previously the liberal mem- 
bers of the Staten-General, as well as those 
of the press, had insisted upon a revision of 
the constitution ; but Willem obstinately 
refused to listen to such an arrangement, 
having always been a decided and obstinate 
foe to all innovation. He was alert when 
he could bring into play a retrograde 
motion,* but deaf when there was any talk 



* See chapter 2. As an instance of his retrogradism 
it may be mentioned that one of his first acts, as sove- 
i^eign of the Netherlands, was the re-establishment of 
corporal punishment for criminals, viz., public whipping 
on a gibbet, and branding with red-hot irons under the 
gallows. These mediaeval atrocities, so degrading to 
humanity, were abolished at the time of the French 
Eevolution. Willem proclaimed his gratification that his 
subjects were fond of the institutions of their forefathers, 
and under that pretext thousands of criminals (even for 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 123 



about progress. The constitution was estab- 
lished in 1815, and bore all the impressions 
of the first days of the Holy Alliance. After 
so many years of obstinate refusal to the 
introduction of any modification in the fun- 
damental institutions of the State, he at 
length, in the summer of 1840, submitted 
a revision of the same to the Stat en- General. 
But although the ameliorations he proposed 
to grant were of very small moment, and 
not tending to a system of liberality, the 
nation was well aware that even the in- 
significant alterations the old king suggested 
were in no way connected with the interests 

crimes considered in England as petty thefts) were, during 
his reign, whipped till the blood of the sufferers flowed 
copiously, and their backs were lashed to pulp, or the 
smell of their roasted flesh filled the noses of the callous- 
hearted witnesses of these horrid cruelties. The greater 
number of the backs thus lashed were branded at the 
same time. About a dozen hangmen congratulated the 
pater patrim on his generosity in restoring the lash and 
the brand-mark. His improvement in their profession 
placed these speculators on human sufferings in better 
circumstances, and it was only fair that they should 
gratefully tender their thanks to the kind patron who 
had thus exhibited his good feelings towards them. 



124 



HOLLAND I ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



of his subjects, but only with his personal 
concerns. Nor was it long before his object 
was clearly brought to light. He abdicated 
on the plea that the new constitution he 
had made his faithful subjects a present of 
would introduce a system of governing to 
which he was not used, and that a younger 
and a firmer hand was now required to 
guide the rudder of state. It was for these 
reasons, continued he, that without any 
constraint whatever, and out of his own 
royal free will, he divested himself of all 
his dignities, and transmitted the crown 
and sceptre to his most beloved eldest son, 
the Prince of Orange. The whole drift 
of the brazen act of abdication was to induce 
the world to believe that he had sacrificed 
personal considerations to the exigencies of 
the times, and the wishes, the tranquillity, 
and the happiness of his faithful Dutch 
subjects. Hypocrisy inaugurated his reign, 
characterised it, and terminated it. 

But what must that man have felt, even 
depraved and base as he was, the moment 
he took the pen in hand to sign his name 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AXD PRISONS. 125 



— for tlie last time as monarch ? To divest 
himself of his despotic power, the conscious- 
ness of which so many years of unscrupulous 
exercise had interwoven in his very ex- 
istence ; to quit a throne he intended to 
occupy until the stroke of death should 
mow him down ; to degrade himself from 
a reigning king of the Netherlands to a 
titular count of Nassau ; to place his crown 
on the head, and his royal ermine round 
the shoulders of a man whom he scorned 
more than any other mortal being — and 
that man his own son ; to be driven from 
his country by the indignation and contempt 
of millions, whom he was prone to consider 
as his marionettes — if that man could feel, 
what must he have felt ! 

Willem I. did not renounce his supreme 
dignity with the stoicism of a Sylla or the 
magnanimity of a Charles Y. The reverse 
was the case. He did not retire ; he ab- 
sconded. He stole away from his residence, 
the Hague, and it was at his silent country- 
seat in Het Loo, in a thinly inhabited part 
of Guelderland, that, in the month of Octo- 



126 HOLLAND I ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

ber, 1840, he inyited a few ministers, and 
there, and in their presence, his trembling 
fingers scrawled six letters of the alphabet 
— and he had signed an act of abdication 
in name, but the doom of his long reign in 
reality ! 

Between the time of his appearance upon 
and his exit off the political stage, what a 
difference ! High rolled the November 
waves of the main which carried him from 
banishment to Holland's shores ; higher was 
the pitch of enthusiasm which bade him 
welcome ; but higher than all rose the 
billows of a nation's resentment, which 
thrust him again into exile. Between 
Scheveningen and Het Loo ; between the 
village of the royal residence and the 
hamlet of the homely country-seat, lay 
a quarter of a century. How many episodes 
had it wrought in which the king had 
played an unfair part ! How many de- 
plorable events belonging to that compass 
of time were originated by him ! and how 
bitter, at last, was the fruit he reaped of his 
egotistic policy ! 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 12/ 

What was he and what could he have 
been ? The fall of Napoleon allowed him 
to return to the country from which, twenty 
years before, he was banished by Holland's 
patriots. Foreign domination had pressed 
hard on Holland, and it had suffered in- 
tensely since the loss of its political ex- 
istence and its annexation to France. Old 
feuds and animosities between patriots and 
Orangists were obliterated in the common 
belief that Willem of Orange-Nassau, 
brought up in the school of adversity, 
would prove the very man to heal the 
wounds which the military rule of a foreign 
despot had inflicted upon the country, and 
to restore the liberties, foster the industry, 
and increase the wealth of the people. His 
return was hailed as the commencement of 
an era of happiness. Holland proclaimed 
him prince-sovereign; within two years 
from that date the Vienna Congress made 
him king of the Netherlands. It cannot be 
denied that Holland and Belgium, united, 
with their noble races of nine millions, with 
their abundance of natural resources, their 



128 HOLLAND: ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 



industry, colonies, commerce, and shipping, 
would, under a liberal and skilful govern- 
ment, form a modern Phoenicia, and a better 
state of the first rank than Prussia. What 
land is better situated for the emporium of 
Europe's great commerce, or for commu- 
nication by land and by sea with all parts of 
the world ? What country is better popu- 
lated, and produces a greater variety of 
natural wealth ? Mix the good-meaning 
phlegm of the Dutchman with the light 
gaiety of the Belgian ; the prudence of the 
former with the readiness of the latter — 
blend the two national characters, and 
where will you find a people happier to 
live with and easier to govern by an en- 
lightened statesman ? 

Eing Willem's partial and impolitic pro- 
ceedings with regard to his Roman Catholic 
subjects date almost from the commence- 
ment of his reign. As early as 1816 he 
caused a Catholic bishop to be condemned 
to the gibbet. As nearly three-fourths of 
the inhabitants of the Netherlands professed 
the faith of Borne, he should have abstained 



ITS PKESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 129 

from treating them with partiality, impu- 
dence, and contempt. A wise prince places 
himself above the differences in the rites and 
external observances of worshipping sects, 
and regards them with the unprejudiced 
mind of a religious philosopher. He does 
not even interfere with harmless extrava- 
gancies and absurdities, convinced as he is 
that progress of time and expansion of true 
knowledge carry with them the antidote for 
their extinction. Instead of reconciliating 
the heterogeneous elements in his king- 
dom, Willem I. estranged the one from the 
other. As previously mentioned, instead of 
strengthening existing ties of common in- 
terest, he sowed discord. ISTot only was 
such the case in religious matters, but in all 
others. He would force the French-speak- 
ing population of Belgium to adopt the 
Dutch language, and no functionaries were 
appointed without being master of it. Pub- 
lic charges were bestowed upon Protestants, 
in places where nearly the entire population 
professed the other religion. At least four 
Dutchmen were chosen for offices against 



130 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 

one Belgian ; and Belgium was governed as 
a conquered province rather than as an 
integral part of the kingdom. And so it 
was, that a country which could have been 
one of the most respected states in the 
world, was torn asunder, and the man who 
might have been till his latest day the 
beloved sovereign of that great and mighty 
realm, was at last not even able to retain 
that smaller portion of it which had sacri- 
ficed itself, and had been so loath to turn 
against him. And there he stood now — 
without a domestic hearth, without a home, 
without a country ! Did not, at least, his 
children console him and soothe his re- 
morse ? Not one of them. He had, be- 
sides his successor, another son, and one 
daughter ; but that son, Frederick, was in- 
different, and that daughter, Marianne, for- 
merly his pet, was now a wandering pro- 
fligate.* All that was left upon which he 

* Since the time Florinda, daughter of Count Julius, 
was ravished by the Moorish king, Kodrigo, her name 
was discontinued among aU Spanish women, and given 
only to dogs. As hereafter will be explained, the name 



ITS PKESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 131 

could fix his affection was Miss Harriet 
d'Oultreinont, the ex-maitresse of his royal 
substitute, and his coffers, filled with ill- 
gotten treasures. With these objects he 
lived during two years in Berlin, dividing 
his time between his Morganatic wife, hi s 
table, his mammon, and his books ; and on 
the morning of a day in December, 1842, 
he was found sitting dead in his arm- 
chair, holding a volume containing Dutch 
sermons in his hand. His carcass was re- 
moved to Delft, and then deposited in the 
dark domains of the worms. The spoil of 
Netherlands, heaped up in his trunks, had 
quite another destination. 

Immediately upon his father's abdication, 
the Prince of Orange ascended to the throne 
of Holland, taking the title of Willem II. 
The nation cherished the highest hopes as 
to the prosperity of his reign. The feverish 
excitement prevailing through the country 
subsided in the bright expectations of a 



of Marianne more naturally deserves such a fate in 
Netherland. 

K 2 



132 HOLLAND ! ITS INSTITUTIONS ) 

better future. And indeed it appeared at 
first as if King Willem II. had adopted for 
his motto the exclamation of Hamlet, "Ke- 
form it altogether." He dismissed all the 
old ministers and servants of his father. 
Every one who had been, even in a pro- 
miscuous way, connected with the Govern- 
ment of his predecessor was disgraced in his 
eyes. The dismissal of the Minister of Jus- 
tice, Yan Maaner, gave the highest satis- 
faction. That political weathercock had 
been, in his early years, a military auditor 
under the Bataefsche RepublicJc, and was ap- 
pointed, together with another young man 
of the name of Bilderdyk, subsequently the 
greatest Dutch poet of his age. Both were 
bound by oath that they would honestly 
serve and uphold the Republic, and be faith- 
ful to its institutions. In 1806, on Holland 
being transformed into a kingdom, and when 
a foreign monarch was intruded upon its 
inhabitants, Bilderdyk refused to swear alle- 
giance to the new king, Louis, contending 
that such would amount to perjury, which 
was a crime he would never commit. Yan 



ITS P&ESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 133 

Maaner was not so particular, and did not 
regard a few perjuries. Without the slight- 
est objection he swore allegiance to the new 
head of the State. When, in 1810, Hol- 
land was incorporated with the French em- 
pire, he gave his oath, with his fidelity, to 
Xapoleon, and, in 1814-15, to the sove- 
reign of Holland and the king of the Ne- 
therlands. Yan Maaner was a favourite 
clerk of Willem L, and for many years his 
Minister of Justice. But no public officer 
was more hated and despised in the South 
as well as in the North Netherlands, than 
he. One of the first houses to which the 
revolting Belgians in 1830 set fire, was 
Yan Maaner' s hotel in Brussels, and if, dur- 
ing that time, he had fallen into the hands 
of the enraged multitude, it assuredly would 
have cost him his life. Yan Maaner was 
the projector of the restrictions on the press, 
and was known to give his inferiors the 
strictest instructions to enforce the penal 
laws to the fall extent of their severity. 
The scorned, barbarous Yan Maaner died a 



134 



HOLLAND ! ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 



wealthy man ; the respected, conscientious, 
and learned Bilderdyk died penniless.* 

Willem II. declared it to be his inten- 
tion that his policy should be honest, and 
the acts of his government straightfor- 
ward ; and, in accordance therewith, a plain 
report of the state of the public finances, 
hitherto shrouded in mystery, was laid be- 
fore the Staten- General. Without any at- 
tempt to conceal the truth, and with a frank- 
ness which very seldom distinguished 
royalty, he informed his subjects and com- 
patriots under what sort of circumstances he 
was commencing his reign. 'No pains were 
taken to disguise the fact, in the report on 

* He had several children, but no proper care was 
taken of them. All died except the youngest son. 
AVillem, I. allowed the surviving offspring of the great 
poet an annuity of £50, until such time as he should 
be appointed to a lieutenancy in the army, and sent the 
stripling to Lieut. -Colonel Frank, who did all he could 
to make a soldier of the neglected youth. Bilderdyk, 
junior, however, was a metaphysical dreamer. The 
old king soon grew tired of the yearly outlay, and Bil- 
derdyk, therefore, was soon appointed lieutenant. The 
soldiers gave him the soubriquet of " the ominous 
bird." 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 135 

the finances, that a deficit of twenty- 
seven millions was discovered in the public 
treasure, unaccounted for by the preceding 
Government; in other words, abstracted or 
stolen by his father. Newspapers and pe- 
riodicals, vindicating the stupidities and 
errors of the old regime, and which had been 
abetted by the defunct administration, met 
with no favour whatever from Willem II. 
The Avondbode, that print which had the 
audacity to advocate the fallacy, " Public 
debts increase national wealth," and the in- 
solence to idolize "Willem L to the last, 
stopped publication a few days after its 
royal supporter had been eclipsed ; and into 
such repute had the very name of Avondbode 
sunk, that not the smallest reasonable sum 
could be realised for its costly presses, and 
they were left in possession of the printer, 
who had degraded himself by its publica- 
tion. 

Meanwhile, my process was not lost sight 
of by the Groningen authorities, and it was 
soon brought before the Provincial Court. 
The same sympathy with the cause of the 



136 HOLLAND: ITS INSTITUTIONS \ 



Talk der Vryheid, as evinced before the 
judges of the district, manifested itself on 
that occasion ; and ecstatic applause greeted 
me on my leaving the audience. The Court 
abated one-fifth of the original sentence, and 
declared that my being imprisoned for a 
simple period of four years only would meet 
the ends of justice. Instead, however, of 
gratefully accepting the mitigated punish- 
ment. I appealed. The same was done by 
the Attorney- General, who did not agree 
with the lenitv of the Court.* As my 
publisher never knew what I sent to the 
printing-office for insertion in the Tolh^ no 
suspicion could reasonably attach to him of 
being an accomplice to my writings ; but on 
this point also, undisputed by the Court, the 
Attorney- General had no belief, and he 
appealed to the High Court in order that 
Bolt should be condemned on that count, 
as well as for crying — "Down with the 



* The name of this man ^vas literally in English, 
- >evenstars.'' ? He was generally called by the people, 
" The Devil of the Highland/* 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 



1ST 



King," — for which, dreadful crime the pro- 
vincial judges confirmed the sentence of two 
years' imprisonment. A few weeks subse- 
quently the case of the Tolk was brought 
before De Hooge Eaad der Nederlander — the 
High Court in the Hague. I had not trou- 
bled myself with making any declamation 
before the District Court of Groningen; it 
was not worth while ; but I parried Mr. 
Sevenstars' damp volubility, replete with 
pointed accusations, as well as I could, and 
had always afterwards been complacently ad- 
miring myself for my cleverness in speechi- 
fying away, with my own tongue, a whole 
year of imprisonment. Before the High 
Court, however, I was not allowed to say 
a word, had I been never so eager to ob- 
tain a new trial. My publisher suggested 
that some eminent professional man should 
defend us, and proposed Mr. Dick Donker 
Curtius, then the only lawyer in ]STether- 
land, who, at the same time, had a repu- 
tation as a publicist. I found Mr. Dick 
Donker of a very unpretending stature, be- 
ing of the five feet pattern, with a breast 



138 



HOLLAND I ITS INSTITDTIONS J 



sd small that one could scarcely believe it 
contained more than one lung, and a mouth 
so narrow that a dog's head potato had to 
be cut into thirty-two equal parts to get 
a passage through it. But this same man 
stood better upon his legs than many a Her- 
cules ; spoke a whole day without grow- 
ing tired ; and had a stentorophonic voice. 
Few, very few, in the Hague knew the little 
man personally. This was not so much on 
account of ■ his miniature size as to his cus- 
tom of hiding himself too much, for he was 
seldom seen loun^in^ in the streets, and 
when he did so, moderately-sized persons 
had their eyes more easily fixed upon his 
large unsightly hat than upon the lazily 
perambulating puny specimen of humanity 
below it. He was a barrister at the Hooge 
Road, but as nobody cared about the plead- 
ings before that Court, he also escaped be- 
ing noticed there. In short, his name was 
known, but his person was ignored. Mr. 
Dick Donker was eloquent in our defence, 
and he, my publisher, and myself, expected 
that the Groningen sentence would be anni- 



ITS PEESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 



139 



hilated, which expectation, however, turned 
out to be a failure. The High Court post- 
poned coming to a decision in our case, as 
usual, for four weeks, and I returned with 
my publisher to Groningen. We went 
together to Hanover, when the day for the 
delivery of the verdict drew near. The case, 
however, was again put off, and once again 
we returned to Groningen. I then resigned 
the direction of the Tolk der Vryheid alto- 
gether, dallied some days, and knowing pre- 
cisely the time the Groningen justice in- 
tended to entrap me, in order to prevent my 
escape I arranged with one of the gate- 
keepers to leave the town in the middle of 
the night before the morning fixed for 
taking me, and went to Amsterdam, where 
I first heard that the High Court had con- 
firmed the sentence of the Groningen Court 
in every particular. After this I immedi- 
ately proceeded in a southern direction. 

Having no passport I could neither cross 
the Belgian nor the French frontier in a 
diligence or a hackney-coach ; but had to pass 
*hem on foot and along bv-roads, exactlv as 



140 HOLLAND ! ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



if I had been a peaceable man residing in 
the neighbourhood of the said frontiers. I 
therefore left my luggage behind. dress 
was very simple, consisting of a cap of an 
ancient magisterial shape, the invention 
being my own, a black neckerchief, and a 
simple coat and trousers, covered with a long 
mantle, similar to that worn by the Belgian 
Jesuits, and which hung down so far as to 
cover the calf of my legs. In that attire I 
arrived in Paris, having first taken a look at 
the Carnival at Antwerp, and visited my 
correspondents in Brussels, Ghent, and other 
places.* I had been three weeks in Paris 
before I went to the Dutch embassy. On 
General Fagel, the minister plenipotentiary, 
seeing me, he was puzzled, and could not 
understand how I had contrived to get to 
Paris, and to reside there without having 



* The principal persons I saw in Brussels were De 
Potter, Bart els, and Jottrand. Faithful to their princi- 
ples, these truly great men, who suffered and fought for 
a republican Belgium, had not accepted any office under 
king Leopold. Had all the members of the National 
Congress, on whose decision, in 1831, the future form 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 141 



any papers. The noble general treated me 
with urbanity and kindness, and offered me 
employment at the embassy, which I ac- 
cepted. 



of government rested, been so disinterested and incor- 
ruptible as they were, Belgium would have been a 
republic. De Potter told me he had considered the 
monarchal institution as a decayed tooth ; his wish had 
been to have it entirely extracted to the very roots from 
Belgium ! "I would not," he said, " have any cure 
attempted ; the remedy must be a total extraction," 



142 HOLLAND: ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 



CHAPTEE IX. 

General Baron Fagel, Minister Plenipotentiary of Hol- 
land, at the Tuileries. — I am condemned to Ten Years' 
Imprisonment, but employed at the Dutch Embassy 
instead. — Embassies and Consulates in General. — 
Paris. — My return to Holland. — Murderous Attack 
on the Frontiers. 

General Bakon Fagel belonged to a family 
who had in many ways rendered important 
services to Orange-Nassau, and contributed 
much to their recall. When Napoleon's star 
was on the wane a few influential men — one 
of them belonging to the FageFs family — 
formed a provincial government, and com- 
menced to reign in the name of Orange- 
Nassau. At the head of that government 
stood the disinterested Van Hogendorp, to 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 143 

whose name and influence Willem I. was 
chiefly indebted for the fact that Holland 
accepted him as prince sovereign. That vir- 
tuous man, whose memory is revered in Hol- 
land, soon perceived, to his profound regret, 
that he had been allured by Orange-ISTassau's 
promises, and that the king of the Nether- 
lands quite forgot that he had been an exile 
and a bankrupt in London.* Seeing that 
all his endeavours to persuade the king to 
adopt a better policy had failed, he retired from 
public life, bewailing the confidence he had 
been unfortunate enough to place in his ban- 
ished protege. "Willem I. treated him as ty- 
rants ever behave to their deluded tools, when 
they neither want nor fear them any longer : 
he took no notice of him. Fagel himself was 
far from being satisfied with Orange-Nassau, 
but as he and Willem were brought up toge- 
ther as children, and so many recollections of 
their youthful days existed between them, he 
would not abruptly break off their connec- 
tion, and consequently entered on a diplo- 



* Willem was partner in a brewery which failed. 



144 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



ruatic career. General Eobert Fagel was 
now about seventy years of age, and one of 
the longest accredited ministers plenipoten- 
tiary in Paris. He was a man of the middle 
size, not robust, but healthy, erect and 
active. He had become almost completely 
bald, and his eyesight "was rapidly growing 
weak. He was not able to read, except by 
means of a strong magnifying glass. Small 
hand-writing he could scarcely decipher at 
all, and I assisted him more than once, 
during the time I was in his favour, in 
reading his private correspondence. Fagel 
possessed all the dignity which sound educa- 
tion, experience, and self-respect impart, 
with the amenity of accomplished good 
manners. He was simple in his habits, 
amiable in his dealings, and civil to all who 
approached him. But too indulgent and too 
impressionable, he lacked the strength of 
purpose and determination which charac- 
terises the man whose actions bear the stamp 
of his principles. He was too easily in- 
fluenced, not bv flatterv, which he hated, 
but bv dexterouslv-woven intrigue, and 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 145 

judged too much by appearances, without 
going at the bottom of circumstances to find 
out the truth. A certain Jonker Guericke, 
a genuine personification of foppery and 
mawkishness, was chief and sole-acting 
secretary to the legation, which situation 
he owed to the accident that his father 
was governor of Dutch Limburg. Guer- 
icke, however, excelled in making a hideous 
noise on his violoncello ; in despatching a good 
lady's breakfast with a number of cakes ; in 
dressing nicely during a couple of hours 
daily ; in keeping his nails in a glittering 
state ; in gambling, idling, and annoying 
other fools with vapidness and insipid talk. 
The small particles of common sense he was 
possessed of, he had carefully centralized, and 
candidly trusted to his developments of cun- 
ning. The taciturnity he observed when 
with his superiors, and the haughtiness he 
displayed towards persons he considered 
below his station, aided by his regular, mean- 
ingless features, and a counterfeit placid air 
of profound meditation, did much to conceal 
the defects of that young man's intellectual 

L 



146 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS , 

disposition and attainments ; but General 
Fagel could not be long in convincing him- 
self that his secretary was a " stupid fellow," 
not even able properly to indite a common 
letter. Fagel made no secret of the dis- 
qualifications of the dandy, nor of his dislike 
to him. Nevertheless, in course of time, the 
young secretary obtained a certain ascendancy 
over the old ambassador. The principal 
personage at the embassy, for the affairs of 
the department of the interior, was Monsieur 
Louis, the cook. Baron Fagel had through 
his whole life continued a bachelor, and so 
Louis became the confidant of his purse, the 
diviner of his palate, and the governor of his 
household, M. Louis had the superinten- 
dence over all the objects belonging to the 
embassy, animate and inanimate. From the 
general's lodge-keeper to the general's scul- 
lion-maid in the back kitchen, all had regard 
for him. When he entered the yard in the 
white garment of his profession, a looker-on 
at a distance would fain believe that he was 
the beloved priest of a herd of peasants, so 
many were the marks of respect and tender- 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 147 

ness from all sides shown to him. Louis had 
the plain title of cook, but that word im- 
plied dignities of higher rank, such as 
cashier, butler, &c. ; in short, it meant facto- 
tum. M. Louis did not, of course, execute 
in person all the business confided to his 
care — quite the contrary ; but it must be ad- 
mitted that he alone arranged and managed 
everything, by his reasonable but stern com- 
mands. Louis was a good example of a 
French cook ; he was a careful, trustworthy 
servant to his master, and a gay and liberal 
gaillard to his friends. Lowest of all in con- 
sideration at the embassy stood a middle- 
aged Parisian, who performed the greater 
and most useful part of the work. That 
poor drudge had to make out and transcribe 
all the passports, and received for his trouble 
not more than 600 francs a-year. He under- 
stood no language but French, and was deaf, 
which made his task exceedingly irksome. 
The hours of business at our embassy were 
from eleven to one o'clock, — two hours a day. 
There were many holidays, and then the 
offices were not open at all. 



148 HOLLAXD : ITS institutions ; 

I had not been very long with Mr. Fagel 
before I obtained pretty correct notions of 
diplomatic institutions in general. The 
functions of a minister plenipotentiary, charge 
d'affaires, or common representative of the 
one court at the other, may be considered 
honourable ; in fact, however, they do not 
signify very much. As an intermedium 
between two courts, these Excellencies have 
to forward to their masters the communica- 
tions from the power they are accredited to, 
and to behave towards the latter according 
to the instructions of their own government. 
Sometimes these communications emanate 
directly from the head of the State ; oftener 
the ministers of foreign affairs have their 
hands in the business. There are times 
when such communications, and the circum- 
stances connected with them, might better 
be entrusted to a clever and discreet mes- 
senger than to mail or telegraph; but in 
such cases the services of the ambassador 
are commonly dispensed with, and as soon 
as the communications assume the form of 
negotiations, requiring superior knowledge 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 149 



and a just appreciation of facts, tact, and 
ability, a special minister is sent. 

Think, not, however, too lightly of the 
ambassador's occupations. Do you see that 
splendid carriage with costly-caparisoned 
horses, coachman and grooms, chiving up to 
the palace ? It contains the ambassador, 
who has a decoration or order in his pocket, 
which he is to deliver to the illustrious 
monarch, who will receive it amidst studied 
tokens of approbation from a number of 
stage-prepared sycophants and flunkeys, col- 
lected round their lord in a halo of dazzling 
magnitude ! Whether now that piece of 
silver, tin, gold, and enamel, is baptised 
in the order of the Elephant, of the Saviour, 
of the Tower and the Sword, of the Eagle, 
of St. Andrew, or of the Lion, I cannot tell 
for the present. Have patience. TTe will 
soon see it dangling on the happy breast of 
the coat it is destined to distinguish. Per- 
chance it may be a miscarried Garter, which 
should have reached ilr. Calcraft for proper 
adjustment. But without venturing into 
these niceties, let me onlv sav, that the 



150 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS \ 

right and the true delivery of that charming 
toy constitutes one of the ambassador's im- 
portant functions ! Another time it happens 
that the monarch's wife is delivered of a 
child. Some davs or weeks after the occur- 
rence there is a great gala at the court, 
and our ambassador has to go there, taking 
his homage to the empress or queen who was 
able to give existence to the little creature, 
already the hope of one or more nations, 
and whose hand he is allowed respectfully 
to kiss ! On that solemn occasion also you 
may see the ambassador driving up in a very 
gorgeous style. A relation of the ambas- 
sador's master dies, — another momentous 
affair, demanding special decorum and cere- 
mony. Although the monarch knows already 
all about the death, he does not consider 
it as authentic, nor acknowledge it until 
he has received official intimation from the 
ambassador. The ambassador's master's 
aunt has given her youngest daughter in 
marriage to Prince Habakkuk, and who else 
is worthy of informing the monarch of such 
an absorbing event but the ambassador? 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 151 

Distinguished countrymen of the ambas- 
sador's arrive at the official residence ; 
they insist upon a carumbole, which the 
ambassador's introduction has to effect upon 
the radiance of their delight and the sun- 
beams of the monarch's smile ; and of course 
the poor ambassador cannot turn his back 
upon such high-spirited play. 

In so many and different ways is it that 
the ambassador renders service in his quality 
of imperial or royal messenger, footman, and 
lackey. The sublime part of his functions, 
however, is more difficult. It requires the 
perfection of self-control ; the faculty of put- 
ting on a face like a mask ; the readiness 
of an eloquent tongue when he can lie 
apropos ; of laughing when he is boiling 
with rage ; and of weeping when his heart 
laughs with indescribable satisfaction and 
contentment. All these diplomatic virtues 
are daily necessaries for the ambassador-spy. 
He wants them when in conversation with 
courtiers as well as in official commerce, 
but more particularly when a guest at the 
monarch's table. On such an occasion he 



152 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ) 

cannot be too watchful. He should hear 
and see everything. He must notice not 
only to whom the monarch privately speaks 
before or after dinner, but also for how long 
and with what sort of gesticulations and 
apparent impression. He should not lose a 
word of what is spoken at the table, and not 
a titter must escape him. He has to observe 
the manner in which and in what time the 
monarch empties his wine ; how many glasses 
he has taken before he commences general 
table-talk, and relapses the fastening of his 
etiquette ; and when his conversation can 
be considered to become of a hypocritical- 
confidential kind. A consummate diplomatist 
has soon studied the monarch sufficiently 
to know where the barrier exists between 
the two characters, and he draws his deduc- 
tions from the difference in official and pri- 
vate hypocrisy.* Observations of the same 
kind are made at balls, soirees, and other 

* The principal ambassadors at the court of Louis 
Philippe were very well acquainted with the old king 
in that respect. After having indulged in the pleasures 
of the table, they flattered his majesty with remarks as 



ITS PEESS, KINGS, AXD PRISONS. 153 

parties, and then extend, commencing with 
the most notable, to the widest range of 
individuals coming nnder his notice. Of 
all the embassies, those at the Tuileries are 
considered to be the most important, for 
never since the great Kevolution has a throne 
in that country stood npon a solid foundation. 
Hence it is that the continental despots not 
only desire to know what is going on in the 
higher circles of France, but also to be in- 
formed as to the disposition of those dynasty- 
destroyers, the working classes of Paris. 
But the ambassadors, so anxious of disguis- 
ing their feelings and thoughts, when fre- 
quenting palaces, will not degrade them- 
selves by disguising their exterior and visit- 
ing traiteurs, niarchands de vin and cafes, and 
they have consequently no opportunity of 
ascertaining personally at what point the 
indicators of the public mind stand. They 
entrust this part of the business to their 

to his peaceful reign, his domestic happiness, and finally 
with his wealth, and they knew what to think of him 
as soon as he had given his usual reply — " He el foment, 
Messieurs j je dinis crihle de dettes" 



154 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

attaches or secretaries, who also are not 
inclined to part for a moment with their 
dress of dandy or beau, or to come in contact 
with blouses, but prefer the theatre, the ball, 
the club, the saloon, and the boudoir, and 
furnish their ambassadors with such parti- 
culars concerning what is astir in low society 
as they hear related among their own 
acquaintances, or gather from some obscure 
mouchard, commonly engaged by several 
parties, to whom they pay a trifle for his 
services. From these clumsy and suspicious 
clues, and their own scanty and partial in- 
formation, the ambassadors draw up their 
general reports, which must contain all which 
they hear, see, conclude, know, or fancy to 
know, and which commonly have to be 
forwarded periodically. This system, how- 
ever, is discontinued during days of irrita- 
tion, riot, and revolt, when all events, 
changes, and incidents have to be reported 
with the utmost celerity and despatch. It 
is also during these political tempests that 
other and safer means of correspondence 
are adopted. Couriers after couriers are 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AXD PRISONS. 155 

sent off, and the documents of which they 
are the bearers are composed of secret 
cypher and hieroglyphical characters, when- 
ever any danger of their being intercepted 
might be expected. The transmission of 
secret reports relative to the court or the 
government the ambassador is accredited to, 
is, even in ordinary times, not confided to 
the post, but to persons belonging to the 
legation ; and only common subjects are 
treated in letters forwarded by mail. 

I have now nearly finished my rough draft 
of the chief occupation of embassies gene- 
rally. It need not be said that there is 
about as much difference between the se- 
veral legations as between the represented 
courts themselves.* Embassies of republics, 
not representing a court, but a nation, or at 
least the majority of it, make altogether an 
exception. Speaking more particularly of 
those of monarchial states of minor ranks, 
it must be avowed that they are not of 

* Among the attaches of the embassies of the first 
rank are always one or more belonging to the secret 
policy, spying their own friends. 



156 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



much benefit to the governments they re- 
present, and still less to the nations which 
have to pay for them. The young men 
belonging to the legations are nearly all of 
high fancied birth, too proud to apply them- 
selves to common pursuits, too indolent to 
inquire into the interests of their nation, 
too poor to live in great style on their own 
means, — expert only in making their toi- 
lette, in killing time in gay places, and in 
squandering money. It sometimes happens 
that a man of the people, from whose taxes 
the embassy is paid, applies for relief to the 
representative of his country. That man has 
expected to do well in foreign parts, but cir- 
cumstances of uncommon occurrence have 
brought him to destruction. The poor wretch 
is ordered to give an account of his former occu- 
pations and whereabouts, and the employes at 
the embassy wonder why he failed to succeed. 
He is refused all assistance if any remark 
can be made upon his conduct, or when he 
is too poor to deserve pecuniary aid from an 
embassy ; that is to say, when his haggard 
appearance is indicative of his being on the 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 157 

very verge of beggary. It is only in 
extraordinary cases that any assistance is 
given, and then even not readily,*but after 
the applicant has jnst been humiliated by 
preposterous and insolent questions.* At 
another time, a man is not in financial, but 
in other difficulties, probably resulting from 
his being a stranger and unacquainted with 
the language and customs of the country in 
which he has taken up his abode. He im- 
plores the interference of the ambassador of 
his country, but all he can obtain is some 
hollow advice, and not one of his country- 
men will accompany him to assist him out of 
his embarrassments. And these are the 
only cases in which embassies are, in an 
abstract sense, of any use to the people, at 
whose cost they amuse themselves. Useful 
inventions or discoveries ; fresh applications 
in mechanics ; improvements in husbandry 

* Individuals who, for reasons explained at page 
15, leave their country with royal pensions — shares 
of the national spoil — experience, of course, no difficul- 
ties at the embassy; they always find their money 
ready enough. 



158 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

and agriculture ; new marts for national in- 
dustry ; amelioration in navigation ; exten- 
sion of bommeree ; education of the peo- 
ple, — nothing of this kind attracts the atten- 
tion of the pleasure-loving attaches, secre- 
taries, and employes, — but dissipation, on the 
contrary, occupies their whole time. To be 
able to talk about diplomacy with an over- 
whelming amount of aplomb ; to possess 
some notions of common and international 
law; to speak the French language gram- 
matically and fluently, and to have a know- 
ledge of the institutions and specialties of 
the country, is all that the programme of 
the qualifications of the spendthrifts con- 
tains. The ambassadors, too, do not care 
about the improvements in arts and sciences, 
nor the diffusion of knowledge in the country 
to which they belong. They are confident 
of faithfully discharging their duty on that 
score, when regularly forwarding the printed 
circulars which they receive from the minis- 
ters for foreign affairs, concerning alterations 
in the duties on articles of export or im- 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 159 



port, or in the number of vises required on 
a passport. 

The embassies form a striking contrast to 
the consulates, as regards expenditure. The 
former cost the Government annually an 
enormous sum; the latter, for the greater 
part, nothing ; with the exception of the 
United States, Great Britain, and France, 
the European maritime powers have not 
even consuls speaking the language of the 
country they represent, — unless it be in a 
very few large towns, — and masters of ves- 
sels apply in vain to them when they re- 
quire information or advice respecting their 
freight, cargo, or whatever it may be. More- 
over, they are not allowed to feel that want 
of consular assistance gratuitously; no, the 
vessel is not allowed to sail before the use- 
less consul has been paid for his trouble in 
soiling the ship's papers with his name. 
Consulages, however, might in many in- 
stances prove more useful than embassies, if 
governments would pay proper attention to 
them. Shipowners would certainly many 



160 HOLLAND ! ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

times have saved considerable sums in cases 
of damage, wreck, or repair, had their cap- 
tains met with an honest consul acquainted 
with the laws of the place, and able to un- 
derstand and to speak to them. Crews of 
vessels, passengers, shipwrecked persons, and 
others, might have been spared great loss 
and trouble, had they possessed the benefit of 
anyone as interpreter and protector. Why 
should not the embassies be made the 
schools of training for consuls ? Why, in- 
stead of lazy blockheads and aristocratic 
scum, are not clever and steady young men 
appointed, not to idle and debauch, but to 
work and study at the embassy, and to pre- 
pare themselves for a situation in which they 
might be of real service to themselves and 
their country ? 

I had not been long employed at the lega- 
tion before the Groningen judges favoured 
me with another condemnation. As related in 
a previous chapter, they had begun a new 
prosecution against me for libel upon the now 
nearly forgotten Willem I. General Fagel 
himself saw the account of the trial, by con- 



» 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 161 

tumacy — in a Parisian morning paper, and 
showed it in astonishment to me. The sen- 
tence was for six years' imprisonment only, 
making, with the fonr in petto, exactly ten, 
in order, as I remarked to the ambassador, 
to honour the decimal system and to keep an 
easier account. I had not received any 
letter addressed to me in my proper name 
since I left Groningen, and only a few of 
my friends in that place were aware that I 
was in Paris. The District Tribunal had no 
idea of my being there ; much less, I suppose, 
that I was employed at the embassy, for 
the attorney of that Tribunal declared that he 
knew better than any one that I was hidden 
at Mr. Yan Baerle's. As, however, they could 
find nobody who would positively swear to 
my having been seen there, they had not 
temerity enough to order a search to be 
made in the major's house, but had it con- 
stantly, closely watched during many weeks, 
of course without my making an appearance. 

I never failed to attend to my business at 
the embassy, nor did I once arrive there after 
the appointed hour. As I did not always 

M 



162 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

find occupation, and not being accustomed 
to idleness, I entered into proper books the 
most important letters and reports, written 
during the last ten or eleven years, and of 
which no copies had been kept but on loose 
sheets of paper. This pastime afforded me 
a very good opportunity of getting some in- 
sight into the sibyllic manoeuvres and ma- 
chinations of diplomacy. In one respect, 
however, I did not give satisfaction at all. 
It was because I would not conform myself 
to the etiquette, the habits, and the man- 
ners of the diplomatic world. The good 
old Fagel himself kindly requested me to go 
to his tailor and to order in his name a full 
equipment ; but I took 300 francs from 
Louis instead, and continued to dress myself 
according to my own fancy — neatly, decently, 
and plain. 

I took the time in which I had nothing to 
do at the embassy, entirely to myself, and 
never frequented private soirees of a diplo- 
matic character. I preferred the society 
of literary and working men, and my leisure 
was divided between their company, the 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 163 

theatre, and my studies. To become ac- 
quainted with the elements of Parisian 
society ; to obtain a knowledge of the peculi- 
arities which characterise its different classes ; 
to form for myself an idea of the diverse 
manners of the existence of so many thou- 
sand individuals ; to initiate myself into the 
mysteries of their political belief and the 
conformity and divergence of their opinions : 
these were the objects I had in view. I had 
no difficulty to discover that all the enlight- 
ened Parisian workmen, no matter how great 
the diversity in their political creed, foster 
republican principles. Considered as a 
body, they may be said to be an intelligent, 
honest, and generous people. I spent many 
hours amongst them in a much more plea- 
sant and instructive manner than the formal 
saloon re-unions could have afforded me. 
The majority of these industrious classes have 
clear and correct notions of politics, are well 
versed in modern, and no strangers to ancient 
literature and history, and discuss the topics 
of the day in a manner which shows their 
good sense and judgment. They hesitate 

m 2 



164 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

not to acknowledge that it is principally from 
their ranks that the men rise, who suddenly 
eome forward when a renewed struggle be- 
tween liberty and tyranny has to be decided; 
and constantly do they bear with them the 
conviction that one day a cry will be heard 
from the barricades, calling them to victory 
or to death. This conviction, and the 
grieving reflection that all the blood that has 
been spilled for liberty's sake since 1789, 
has not yet produced the expected fruits, 
make the Parisian workman, independent of 
his gay and merry manner during his 
recreations, pensive and meditative, and 
stamp his brow with the seriousness of pro- 
found occupation. A feeling of fraternity 
pervades all the toiling classes; and the 
same may be said of the hommes de lettres, 
who, very naturally, are all republicans — a 
few, who barter the liberty of their con- 
science only excepted. Baron Fagel, in- 
fluenced by the invidious reports of Mr. 
Guericke, apprehended that I might form 
too close a connection in Paris, quite oppo- 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 165 



site to that which he should wish to see, 
and this was the reason that he insisted upon 
the king's annulling my condemnation as 
soon as possible. Willem II. intended allow- 
ing me to return whenever I thought proper, 
when such could be done without causing 
any great amount of surprise and suspicion, 
and in such a way as to prevent the recri- 
mination of the authorities, especially that 
of the Groningen magistrates, who had given 
themselves more anxiety and trouble on my 
account than they could have had with a 
score of common criminals. It would seem, 
however, as if six months of easy work at the 
embassy could obliterate the sentences and 
arrests by which the distribution of ten years' 
intended incarceration had taken place, for in 
September, 1841, I received a verbal com- 
munication that the Dutch minister of jus- 
tice had been confidentially ordered to inform 
the authorities that his Majesty had been 
pleased to grant an entire and unconditional 
remission of the punishments pronounced 
against me. On the same day the ambas- 



166 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



sador, evidently prepossessed against me, gave 
me my passport for Holland, and "wished me 
good-bye — and I took my leave with diplo- 
matic courtesy. I made up my mind to 
take up my residence in a quiet corner of 
IsTetherland, far from Groningen, where I 
intended to live retired and unnoticed, and 
accordingly proceeded to Heeze, a village 
in the province of Noord Braband, on the 
Belgian frontier, where a friend of mine was 
under the treatment of a celebrated oculist, 
of whom I shall have to speak hereafter. 
My good intentions, however, were frus- 
trated shortly after my arrival, by a mur- 
derous assault, made by six armed men, 
upon myself and two of my friends, when 
we were returning, late at night, on a lonely 
way. I escaped with a few insignificant 
wounds ; but one of my companions had his 
head nearly severed from his body. A gar- 
bled and unfair statement of that attack, 
misrepresenting the facts, was forwarded to 
the Handelsblad by their correspondent, a 
greffier at the District Tribunal of End- 
hoven, and my return to Holland was at 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 167 

once recorded in all tlie newspapers. I there- 
upon left first for Amsterdam, and subse- 
quently for the Hague, there to appear, 
according to his Majesty's desire, at a private 
audience with King Willexn II. 



168 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



CHAPTEE X. 

Willem II. ; his apparent kindness. — M. Rochussen ; 
his reception of the Author. — M. Yan Hall. — Willem's 
regard for Belgium ; his popularity. — Louis Philippe's 
policy. — Princess Marianne. — Yan Eappard. 

The Hague ! that name awakens a strain 
of recollections and mingled feelings in my 
breast, and I imperceptibly lose myself in 
melancholy reverie when my thoughts are 
lingering on the place. It was there that 
I enjoyed life in all its alluring aspects, and 
where I suffered to the extreme limits of 
human endurance. It was there that my 
soul slumbered in the downy embrace of 
happy attachment and sweet affection, and 
that my blood was boiling with fierce ha- 
tred, scorn, and rage. Little did I think on 
my arrival that I should discover so much 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 169 

crime and so much misery in that town, or 
that I should become acquainted with the 
mysteries of the royal palace and of the 
prison of the Hague, and that many days of 
my life would be connected with both these 
extremities of human invention, and with so 
much that lay between. 

It was in October, a month after I had 
returned to Holland, that I saw Willem II. 
He was then nearly forty-nine years of age, 
and had been king nearly a year. He was 
a man of the middle size, slender, agile, 
lively, and active. His frame and his struc- 
ture were perfectly proportionate. He was, 
like all the members of the Orange-X assau 
family, in the habit of making very short 
steps, and his feet moved with uncommon 
celerity. There was an unpretending grace 
and attractive harmony in all his manners ; 
creating that sudden prepossession, which 
we sometimes feel in favour of persons whom 
we have never seen before. Willem II. 
had a noble forehead, appearing to be larger 
than it was in reality, through his having 
but little hair left; his penetrating eyes 



170 HOLLAR : ITS INSTITUTIONS ) 

were of a bright grey, his looks conveyed 
kindness, and round his mouth was a smile 
of condescending affability. His whole ex- 
terior betrayed an adventurous mind ; his 
characteristic features, sometimes oversha- 
dowed by grave reflections, bore the deep 
marked impressions of strong passions, and 
the traces of inward sorrow and anguish 
which had passed over that head. Willem 
II. had no moustachios ; but large fair 
whiskers, meeting under the chin, brought 
his interesting visage into a favourable re- 
lief. It happened sometimes that the coun- 
tenance of that man unexpectedly took 
another strange form. All on a sudden, a 
dark cloud appeared to rise between his 
thoughts and some involuntary emotions ; he 
lost the thread of his discourse, his eyes 
were staring on vacancy, an electric shock 
of pain seemed to touch his nerves, and an 
inexpressible uneasiness pervaded his whole 
being. All this lasted only for a few mi- 
nutes, but long enough to show that some 
awful idea was intruding upon him, and for- 
cibly disturbing his equanimity. What was 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 171 

that mysterious spectre that thus magically 
stole upon the mind and disturbed the peace 
and contentment of the affable king ? "Was 
his conscience reproaching him that he had 
obtained the crown by unfair means, and 
that he had broken his father's heart ? Or 
was there unwillingly recalled to him some 
of his former misdeeds ? Nothing of the 
kind. He was not haunted by the recollec- 
tion of wrong actions, already committed; 
he was afraid of future transgressions, the 
lustful temptations of which he was not 
strong enough to resist. He quaked with 
fear of himself. 

The king received me with the utmost 
kindness, and addressed me in very friendly 
terms. He did not, however, make the 
slightest allusion to his father's abdication, 
or to the circumstances and machinations 
which had led to it, and I would not, of 
course, touch upon that too delicate sub- 
ject. He made only desultory remarks upon 
politics. "Without entering into particulars 
myself, I expressed a hope that his Ma- 
jesty's reign might continue as it had begun, 



172 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

and secure to him the blessings of a good 
and grateful people. After some flattering 
remarks, he said that I could consider my- 
self from that time to be under his special 
protection, and trusted I would, for his sake, 
make a right use of the talents which nature 
had bestowed upon me. He requested me 
to remain in the Hague, and to have an 
audience with the different ministers, to 
whom he would notify his intentions. He 
desired me diligently to study public affairs, 
for which I would now have the best oppor- 
tunity, and when, after some time had 
passed, a good public office should be va- 
cant, he would appoint me to it. He fur- 
ther enlarged upon my manifold lawsuits 
and disagreeable travels, which induced him 
to entertain the belief that I had been sub- 
jected to heavy expenses during the last 
year. Although I did not refer to my finan- 
cial difficulties, nor even had the remotest 
idea of doing so, I soon perceived that he 
spoke in that strain as introductory to his 
handing me some banknotes, of which, he 
added, I could have more whenever, at rea- 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 173 

sonable intervals, I applied to him. Ascrib- 
ing this liberality not to any stratagem but 
to his generosity, fascinated by his manners, 
and highly gratified with so amicable a re- 
ception, I left the palace, pondering and 
doubting whether so many nations would 
have reasons of dissatisfaction, and of long- 
ing for democratic superiors, if all kings 
were like Willem II. My republican con- 
science, it is true, reproached me with hay- 
ing accepted a don gratait from the king, 
but the certainty I had that "Willem II. 
himself fostered liberal principles, counter- 
balanced that feeling. I had at that time 
the best intentions, and eagerly wished for 
an occasion to convince the king how much 
I valued the distinction with which he had 
treated me. My ardour was a child of my 
imagination; the charm of the royal smile 
vanished, as soon as the naked truth had 
destroyed my delusion. The first minister 
I paid a visit to was the Minister of Finance, 
Eochussen, and that man at once dispelled 
the high estimation in which I held the 
government of Willem II. 



174 HOLLAND: ITS INSTITUTIONS ) 



Mr. Rochussen had been an officer of 
Customs in Amsterdam, and distinguished 
himself by his zeal, his quickness in cypher- 
ing, and his unreserved "way of very plainly 
expressing his true or assumed opinions, 
which, under Willem I., was something so 
extraordinary, that it gave a public officer a 
good reputation with the people. That same 
way of dealing he made an experiment of 
as minister. Wondering at his success, he 
grew from a bold and impertinent to a 
ruffianly Excellency. He was not only a 
stranger to all those refined feelings and 
nice attentions, which constitute the foun- 
dation of a friendly and pleasurable com- 
merce between educated men, but even 
lacked common civility, and could not be 
said to be anything else than a political 
bully. The Dutch character bears in some 
respects much similarity to the English. 
Over-anxious to avoid forming a wrong 
opinion of statesmen, entering on their career, 
an unscrupulous, fearless, and adroit mounte- 
bank, honoured by the misguided choice of 
his sovereign, may, in both countries, for a 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 175 

length of time successfully play the part of 
a minister, at least of a minister of finances. 
Eochussen was such a sort of mountebank. 
On entering his cabinet I found his head 
slightly inclined over some papers, which 
appeared to devour the consciousness of his 
existence. So grave was his look, his air, 
his mien ; so much solemnity was there about 
his posture, and such an amount of super- 
humanity in his attitude, that, involuntarily, 
the innocent thought crept upon me that 
he was computing the duration of a newly 
discovered eternity. He had been sitting in 
that way for a quarter of an hour, when, 
passing his hand over his face, he suddenly 
arose and in a few theatrical steps came up 
close to me. " I am acquainted," said he, 
" with the king's intentions towards you, 
but I don't care a straw for the king. "We 
have now a responsible ministry. I am 
answerable, and he is not ; all comes back 
to me, and so all shall depend upon me. 
My will shall be done. If you have any- 
thing to communicate regarding my depart- 
ment you had better address yourself direct 



176 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

to me, for I am the head. As for your 
being or having been an editor of a paper, 
I don't care — look, so much !" Uttering 
these last words, he very adroitly made a 
snap with his finger and thumb, nearly 
touching the top of my nose. I paced back- 
ward, as he advanced, until I had reached 
the door, which I promptly closed between 
us. That singular audience convinced me 
that his Excellency, Mr. Eochussen, still smelt 
very strongly of the stockfish-shop where, 
some twenty years ago, he had served his 
apprenticeship. From all that I had heard 
at that " audience," I drew the conclusion 
that Eochussen was rather the king's master 
than his servant. Other intimations fortified 
the supposition I began to form about the 
want of firmness and manliness of Willem II. 
Notwithstanding the personal bravery and dar- 
ng he possessed when on the field of battle, 
he lacked the calm moral courage required 
in the cabinet of a ruler of State. He 
sacrificed too much to his desire to see satis- 
fied and happy-looking faces around him. 
He was weak enough inconsiderately to give 



ITS PEESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 177 

way before every strongly pressed argument 
that could provoke a protracted or decisive 
resistance on his side. He subjected his will 
to the will of those who employed the most 
efficient subtlety to lead him. Too much 
contact with the world — too much indulging, 
debilitating pleasures — had had a benumbing 
influence on the nerve of his resolution. 
Revelry and licentiousness on the one, and 
insufficient exercise, both of body and mind, 
on the other hand, had dissolved his original 
vigour, fortitude and determination. 

Rochussen was not the only minister who 
treated Willem II. in that way. Van Hall, 
who was afterwards appointed Minister of 
Justice, followed the example. The latter, 
however, was a polite and learned man, and 
more cunning and ambitious than Rochussen. 
He slowly undermined the ground under 
the feet of his confrere, and Willem II., who 
got tired of the impertinences of Rochussen, 
and cursed him in his heart, was easily 
induced to give the latter the post of gover- 
nor-general of the Dutch East Indian pos- 
sessions, in exchange for his portfolio of 

N 



178 



HOLLAND I ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 



Finances. From that time, Yan Hall was 
master of the office, and, leading the king, 
with apparent submission and deep respect 
for his majesty , he was for a long period 
de facto ruler of Netherland. 

The eyes of "Willem II. were constantly 
turned to Belgium. He loved that country 
doatingly, and decidedly much better than 
Holland. He had still many friends there, 
who in former years enjoyed either his 
generosity or his gay and spirited company. 
His lively temper, his fondness of social 
amusement, his laisser-aller, and his .easy 
and refined manners, agreed better with the 
Belgian than with the Dutch element. His 
mental sufferings for the loss of that fine 
realm, finished only with his last breath. 
Up to the latest years of his reign also, he 
cherished the silent hope that Fortune would 
put him at the head of that beloved nation. 
He supported many Belgian newspapers to 
vindicate his cause and to pave the way to a 
restoration, or at least to a reconciliation. 
Several literary men and artists had, since 
the separation of the two countries, continued 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 179 

to receive proofs of his liberality. He had, 
moreover, a great number of partisans and 
sincere friends among the mercantile and 
industrious classes in South Netherlands 
and those of the Flemish population espe- 
cially, were decidedly in favour of a reunion 
with Holland, under a liberal constitution, 
with Willem II. at the head. And it was 
at that stage of the second "Willem 5 s reign 
not without some chances of probability, that 
the greater part of Belgium should have 
formed, with Holland, a new kingdom of the 
Netherlands. The face of Europe would, 
very likely, at this moment wear another 
appearance, had Louis Phillippe died by the 
accident that brought his son, the heroic and 
noble-minded Due d' Orleans, to an un- 
timely grave. Leopold of Saxe-Coburg was 
never liked by the eldest son of the late 
French king, although he was married to his 
own beloved sister. The great difference 
between the two persons allowed of no amity. 
The Due d' Orleans was open, sans souci and 
chivalrous as Willem II. ; Leopold had a 
prosaic character, and cultivated from his 

N 2 



180 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



early years, slyness, cunning, and circum- 
spection. The king of Holland and the 
heir presumptive to the throne of France 
were very intimate friends in 1 841-42 . They 
had a personal interview together in Lux- 
emburg, and, on that occasion, important 
resolutions were taken. The policy of the 
Due d' Orleans, as French king, would have 
been aggressive. On the first occasion that 
a pretext could be found, he would have seized 
upon the Prussian Ehenish territory, and have 
restored the former frontier of France in that 
quarter. Willem II. would have made an 
alliance with him against Prussia, and 
French troops would^ at the first Orangistic 
outburst in Ghent, have invaded Belgium, 
to assist in the re-establishment of the king- 
dom of the Netherlands as it was before the 
revolution of 1830. 

"Willem II. never had any sympathy for 
the Hohenzollerns, and, under the above 
circumstances, would have been happy to 
give an open proof of it. His hatred against 
that dynasty had much increased during the 
last few years. Prussia's neutrality in 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS, 181 

1830, which soon changed to her insisting 
upon a separation between North, and South 
Netherland, had sufficiently proved to him 
that selfishness was the only pivot of the 
policy of the Hohenzollerns. Willem II. 
also fancied that the brutal treatment his 
only sister Marianne had experienced at the 
hands of her husband, the libertine Prince 
Albert of Prussia, had caused her to swerve 
from her duty and degrade herself to a 
harlot. It was not long before the time I am 
speaking of, that a legal divorce was obtained, 
and Prince Albert of Prussia took all the 
children, of whom he thought himself to be 
the natural as well as the lawful father, 
under his care. Dutch newspapers, espe- 
cially the truckling Hanclelshlad, first tried 
to spread the report that Marianne had been 
justified by the Prussian Judges, before 
whom the application for divorce had been 
made, but the real facts could not long 
remain concealed. Princess Marianne was 
to be pitied; her husband applied his 
fists and riding-whip to her royal person, 
but even that gave her no right to commit 



182 HOLLAND! ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

adultery, which, moreover, there is every 
reason to believe she committed before 
Prince Albert, debauched as he was, had 
ever acted as a dastardly ruffian towards 
her. Marianne, as I have already said, was 
the pet of Willcm I., and, like all other 
pets, was spoiled. Seeing at last the loose- 
ness of his beloved daughter, he took the 
first husband of royal blood he could get 
hold of, and gave her away to Albert of 
Prussia during the stormy days preceding 
Belgium's independence. She was then a 
pretty blonde, of that fair colour which, cha- 
racterises the descendants of central Ger- 
many, so fertile in the production of princely 
offsprings and similar articles of negative 
wealth. There had been no restraint exer- 
cised upon her since her mother died in 
1837. She commenced her career when only 
seventeen years of age, and encouraged not 
only young suitors, whom she knew it could 
never be her lot to possess, but indulged in 
horrid unnatural defilements, unfit for fur- 
ther remark. But before that time she had 
been coquetting. How many young men 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 183 

sighed for her I don't know ; but I believe 
that nobody but she alone, turned the head 
of the poor Marquis de Thouars. This dis- 
tant relation of the Orange-lNassaus was of 
about the same age as Marianne, and page 
to Willem I. He really loved her with all 
his heart. He began to compose verses, and 
produced a few excellent poems, which were 
published in Dutch periodicals. His muse 
was in the constant service of the princess, 
but Marianne proved so fickle, that he soon 
took to another than Parnassus-nectar, and 
sought relief for his pains in the abuse of 
intoxicating liquors, thus taking his first 
step down the fatal decline of drunkenness. 
Shortly afterwards, he was appointed a lieu- 
tenant of infantry, and had to leave the 
Court. A few years from thence, he found 
himself in the citadel of Antwerp, where he 
behaved very bravely ; but, owing to his not 
submitting to discipline, he was discharged 
from the service. De Thouars was subse- 
quently indicted for libel, alleged to have 
been committed in a pamphlet which he 
published on the occasion, concerning the 



184 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

cowardly conduct of officers who were with 
him in the citadel ; and the poor marquis, 
although, very probably, he had stated no- 
thing but the truth, was condemned to pri- 
son, to pay a fine, and to lose his civil 
rights. This embittered him extremely, 
and he could never forget the humiliation of 
that proceeding. When still in the army, 
another officer, whom he considered as his 
friend, offended him more than he had done 
in his pamphlet ; he seduced the unworthy 
woman whom De Thouars took for his wife, 
after his happy dreams of Marianne had for 
ever gone. But the seducer was not pu- 
nished, and was not even reprimanded by 
his military superiors. Sad and weary 
De Thouars returned, after so much adver- 
sity, to his aged mother, who resided in an 
old country-house, situated in the province 
of Overyssel, with two of her daughters, 
upon a pension granted her by Orange- 
Nassau. The marquis remained with the 
quiet family till 1846, when, without any 
judicial condemnation, the handcuffs were 
screwed around his wrists, and he was torn 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 185 

away from the embrace of his lamenting 
mother and sisters. 

Meanwhile, Marianne had untowardly fol- 
lowed her course of degradation. A man of 
the name of Van Eossem, formerly a cor- 
poral in the army, had been appointed to 
a situation in the stables of Her Eoyal 
Highness, and some years previously, in fact 
long before she had ceased to be married, 
her eye had fallen upon him, and he con- 
tinued to be her paramour. It is difficult to 
imagine a man more insolent and low than 
Van Eossem, and a woman more deeply de- 
graded than Marianne. He lost no oppor- 
tunity of publicly showing that he was the 
master of the unfortunate princess, and he 
treated her ostentatiously, with the autho- 
rity of an eastern rajah when addressing his 
slaves. Mr. Van Eossem would not allow 
Marianne to enter his room before she had 
sent a lackey to obtain permission, and to 
know in what dress she was to appear. He 
expressed himself commonly in contemptible 
terms when speaking of her to her servants, 
formerly his equals or superiors, and would 



186 HOLLAND: ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 

not allow her to approach him when he was 
not in a good temper, or when he chose to 
see other company. So deeply had Marianne 
sunk in the beginning of the reign of Willem 
II. ; but that she sunk still deeper will 
hereafter be shown. Greatly did this scan- 
dal affect her royal brother, and increase 
the odium he entertained towards the Prus- 
sian dynasty. Hence, he was so much the 
more ready to promise the Due d' Orleans to 
attack the Prussians beyond the frontier of 
the Netherlands, simultaneously with the 
advancing of the French troops into Bel- 
gium, and across the Western Prussian 
limits. 

Willem II. would have enjoyed, to the 
full extent, the greatest satisfaction a human 
soul could feel, had he been able to have 
Belgium returned to him, and, as king of 
the Netherlands, made the treacherous, 
egotistic, and mean Prussians to tremble 
before him. But for an accident, his fond 
expectations might have been realised. The 
horses drawing the carriage in which the 
Due d' Orleans was seated, took fright and 



ITS PEESS, XIXGS, AXD PRISONS. 187 

became unmanageable ; the prince leaped 
out from the carriage, but the spur of one 
of bis boots was, for a second, entangled in 
the lining, and he fell with his head against 
a purbeck stone, as hard for him as for 
every other mortal being ; his skull was 
broken, and implacable Death made a stroke 
through all the magnificent schemes it con- 
tained. The deplorable fate of that young 
prince was a double misfortune for Willem 
II. ; he lost in him a sincere friend, and 
at the same time, the corner-stone of his 
brightest hopes, No wonder that the 
dreadful event had a lasting influence upon 
him. 

The reception I had met with at Eochus- 
sen's did not give me any extraordinary 
desire to court the acquaintance of other 
ministers ; and much less so as — with the 
exception of Van Hall, the minister of Jus- 
tice — they were known to be, in all par- 
ticular cases, under the intimidation of 
Eochussen. I saw them all, however, with 
the exception of their Excellencies the 
minister for the Protestant and the min- 



188 HOLLAND ! ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 

ister for the Catholic worship. A statesman, 
as minister at the head of all the ministers 
of the Protestant, and another at the head of 
all those of the Catholic faith, is certainly a 
curiosity ; but it is looked upon as a neces- 
sity in Holland and other countries, where 
religion for the people is the principal branch 
of policy with the government. Besides 
with the first-named ministers, I had occa- 
sionally an interview with the chevalier Yan 
Eappard, director of the cabinet of the king. 
That man also possessed influence in the 
highest quarters, but he never used that 
unpolished and provoking language, as the 
minister of finances, nor tried to make the 
king the tool of his intrigues. As he had, 
by principle, a deep veneration for monar- 
chical institutions, he was always humble 
when in the presence of Willem II., and 
would have been so before any other 
crowned head. Yan Rappard was a very 
unpretending, zealous officer, and took, 
after his own and his relations' interests, 
faithful care of those of his royal master. 
There is no doubt that he became acquainted 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AM) PEISOXS. 189 



with the greater part of the domestic con- 
cerns of the Orange-Nassau, but he certainly 
was not the person who disclosed the terrible 
things he knew, or divulged the scenes he 
sometimes himself witnessed. He was the 
confidant of Willem II. in all affairs which 
allowed of discussion, and continued to be 
so, till the demise of the king. I also became 
acquainted with another person in the con- 
fidence of Willem II., and who, in every 
respect, deserved the friendship of a king. 
It was his aide-de-camp, Major Merkes, 
afterwards Merkes Yan Gendt — a man who, 
by his own exertion and merit, had risen to 
that station. When King Willem II. passed 
the great part of the night in contemplating 
or framing some project or plan in which 
he took particular interest, he was always 
attended by his aide-de-camp, Merkes, who 
assisted him in his lucubrations. I was soon 
initiated in the palace, and the production 
of the king's nightly studies gave me the 
first occasion, constantly, to attend there. 
According to the orders of his master, Major 
Merkes requested me to call at the palace 



190 HOLLAND t ITS INSTITUTIONS; 

every morning, so soon as I arose, and to 
endeavour to complete one of their works in 
the course of the night. During some 
months I "went to the palace about eight 
o'clock in the morning, every time that Ma- 
jor Merkes had been studying with the king. 
Unless something extraordinary, such as a 
journey or a revue, was to take place, no 
official life was stirring at that hour in the 
royal dwelling ; and no common servant 
ever interfered with my going into any of 
the rooms I thought proper to enter. In 
this manner, I gradually became acquainted 
with all that was going on in the dwelling 
of the king, for he was very careless with 
regard to his papers. The letters which 
arrived by post, addressed to his majesty, 
were opened and read by Mr. Van Eappard ; 
those delivered at the palace, by the aide-de- 
camp, who every day made a summary of 
them. Only those letters expressly stating 
that they were private, generally bearing the 
French words affaires particulieres, were 
opened by the king himself, and commonly, 
with disregard to their contents, laid down in 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AXD PRISONS- 191 

some corner, and not unfrequently forgotten. 
The king spent the greater part of the time 
he devoted to affairs of public importance, in 
investigating into the seeming ameliora- 
tion of the state of the army and navy, and 
of the colonies. The present system of for- 
tifications from Zealand and Berge op Zoom 
to Maestricht to the east, and Nimwegen* 
on the north-eastern directions, was the 
invention of Willem II., who had a penchant 
for that sort of work, stimulated by his 
faithful confidant, who belonged to the corps 
of genie. He had also under his consideration 
the dry-making of the Haarlemmer Meer ; 
and the elaborate plan of it, written in French 
— u Le Dessechement du Lac d'Harlem" — 
was partially indited by him. There was 
also submitted to his approbation and co- 
operation the plan of the equestrian statue 
of Willem, Count of Nassau, to whose 



* The fortifications of Breda and Den Bosch, in Nord 
Brabant, were finished during his lifetime. The 
genie in Is"imwegen was to commence the improve- 
ments of the western or KrayenhofT fortress of the place 
in 1849. 



192 HOLLAND I ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

heroism and perseverance, Holland, in some 
measure, owed her independence of Spain, 
All these, and other plans and schemes, came 
into my hands, and I shaped them into a 
correct and grammatical form, at the same 
time submitting my remarks to the august 
projector. 

All this was in the beginning of the reign 
of Willem II. Nothing happened in his 
country to give him the slightest alarm ; and 
he had received many proofs of being beloved 
by his people. He did not find, in his 
domestic circle, the satisfaction he had a 
right to expect ; but still he was respected 
as a father. He blanched when the thought 
of what his sister had become intruded itself 
on his mind : but a look from his chaste and 
lovely daughter, Sophia, changed that blush 
of shame into one of paternal affection. Con- 
jugal intercourse had ceased to exist ; but 
he spent a short time, nearly every evening, 
in conversation with his wife, and she did 
nothing to give him trouble. He was not 
on friendly terms with his brother, Frederick, 
and his wife ; but he was satisfied that they 



ITS PRESS ? KINGS, AND PRISONS. 193 

were not conspiring against him, and he 
loved their two beautiful and innocent daugh- 
ters as if they had been his own ; — in fact, 
he was not unhappy yet. 




o 



194 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 



CHAPTEE XI. 

Schemers of Financial Pleasures on the Continent. — 
Diet and Health of Willem II. — His Parsimony and 
his Lavishness. — My Tisit to the Minister -Oculist, 
Kremer, in Heeze. — My Doings in that Tillage. — 
Cornelia Yogel. 

Princess Sophia, the beloved daughter of 
Willein II.j was married in the beginning 
of 1842, to the eldest son of the reigning 
Grand Duke of Saxe Weimar-Eisenach, a 
young man of a yeiy plain exterior, haying 
more the appearance and manners of a clown 
than of a prince — even a German prince — 
and as hale, robust, and tawny, as Sophia 
was delicate and refined. The king wept 
abundantly on parting with his only daughter. 
The fact was, he had more paternal affection 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 195 

for her alone, than for all his three sons 
together. A very unpleasant incident hap- 
pened shortly before the marriage of the 
princess, involuntarily bringing to mind the 
abstraction of the diamonds at Brussels, in 
1829, but not so generally known. An 
Israelitish jeweller called at the king's palace 
one afternoon, and offered a set of diamond' 
ear-rings for sale. The precious gems were 
enclosed in a small box, and as the princess 
was engaged at that moment, she ordered 
the lackey to place them in her dressing- 
room. Half an hour afterwards she returned 
to the room to have a better look at the 
jewels, but, on opening the box, she disco- 
vered that the contents were gone. INTo one 
had had access to the dressing-room but the 
lackey, and he was considered by some at 
court to be the guilty party, but by others 
to have been only the instrument. He was 
dismissed ; the police were unrelentingly on 
his track, but the justice of the royal (the 
Hague) palace never found out the perpetrator 
of that daring theft, which cost Willem II. 

o 2 



196 HOLLAND: ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 



4,500 guilders.* About six months after- 
wards, the Due d ? Orleans breathed his last, 
as described in a previous chapter. It was 
in the course of this year that disagreeable 
circumstances began to surround the king, 
and overshadow the enjoyment of his 
reign. Many persons to whom he had 
promised offices or rewards during the time 
he was crown-prince, became very trouble- 
some to him, and he was the less able to 
satisfy them all, as the ministry would not 
appoint any one to public offices whom he 
had recommended — extraordinary cases only 
excepted. Van Hall had gradually be- 
come a necessity, and that minister made 
full use of the power he had contrived to 
usurp. On the other hand, there was De 
Eempenaer, the deadly foe of Yan Hall, as 
well as of Baud, the Minister of Colonies. 
So far was their mutual hatred carried, that 
the ex-confidant of the former Prince of 



* I was, in 1 845, summoned as a witness before the 
judge of instruction, Canneman, in the Hague, about 
this robbery. I referred to a person who I knew was 
aware of the particulars of it. 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 197 

Orange returned a rather unfriendly letter 
of Baud, with the corner of it burnt — one of 
the greatest insults man can offer to man in 
Holland. Between these parties the king 
tried to establish peace ; but he was no longer 
able to do so, and the two ministers having 
threatened Willem with their resignation, if 
De Kempenaer continued to send his special 
reports about the affairs of the state or those 
of the ministers to the king direct, they 
gained the victory, and De Kempenaer ceased 
to have any influence. It was from that 
time that he lost all decency and self- 
respect. 

The Jonker was not the only one who 
forwarded reports to the king or the govern- 
ment. It is amusing to observe how, in the 
petty states of old Europe, projectors of 
financial measures spring up like mushrooms, 
whenever a political crisis appears on the 
horizon. Persons hitherto unheard of, jump 
upon the scene of public disputation, and at 
once develop their projects, which are, for the 
greater part, ludicrous or absurd. Financial 
concerns then awake the readiness of a great 



198 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

number of patriots, and, curious enough, 
these patriots are as rich in schemes as they 
are destitute of the real thing. The public 
treasure of Holland was continually suffering 
from the " te-kort" u too short," as the thefts 
of Willem were then called, and to remedy 
the evil, different measures were brought on 
the tapis. Among those who forwarde 1 
plans to the chief of the State, or the Staten- 
General, more conspicuous either for their 
tenacity, presumption, absurdity, or risibility, 
than others, were Van Der Tuuk, in Haar- 
lem ; D. B. Adrian, in the Hague ; and 
Pieter Cleban, L. van Vliet, Cats, and 
Petrus Jansen, in Amsterdam. The words 
absurdity and risibility apply more particu- 
larly to the two latter. Petrus J ansen after- 
wards became a personal acquaintance of 
Willem II. ; as regards Cats, he was, at the 
time I accidentally fell in company with 
him, a merchant in one of the principal 
quarters of the Jews in Amsterdam, viz., 
the Joden-Heeregracht. I was first intro- 
duced into his drawing-room, where I found 
him with his wife and daughters, the two 



ITS PRESS, KDsGS, USD PRISONS. 199 



latter being beautiful specimens of the 
Hebrew race. In that same room, two large 
and well-executed pictures, representing the 
daughters of Isaac giving their father in- 
toxicating liquors, with a full explanation of 
the expected consequences, formed the chief 
objects of attraction. I could not help alter- 
nately looking now at the pictures, and then 
at the little sore-eyed, coarse, and ugly Cats, 
and then again at his rosy and beautiful 
daughters, who more than once noticed my 
involuntary diversions, but did not blush. 
While conversing with him in his drawing- 
room, I thought that Mr. Cats was a crazy, 
dull-brained fool ; what I heard in his 
counting-house convinced me that he was 
a maniac. He opened his chest which stood 
behind him, and did not close it again, in 
order that I might see how many bags, 
apparently filled with coin, he had in his 
possession. He then requested me to listen 
to him, as he was going to read one of his 
brochures, which had been published at his 
own expense. On that occasion, I heard 
the greatest nonsense and most frothy rig- 



200 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

marole that could ever have appeared in print. 
As an instance ; let me mention that he 
firmly asserted that all the heavy smoke of 
steam-coals, which in continually-increasing 
quantities, is launched into the atmosphere 
through the chimneys of steamers, boilers, 
and engines of every description, would at 
last sever the equilibrium between the 
centrifugal and centripetal powers, and cause 
the earth, then unloosed, to bound through 
the spheres until she knocked herself to 
atoms against some other strong planet, the 
inhabitants of which had not, wisely, in- 
dulged in the luxury of steam. Yet such 
sort of people found — as Cats did when his 
folly reduced him to beggary — a protector in 
Willem II. Pieter Cleban, and A. Linck, 
another publicist, in Naarden, who had both 
been grieved by the government, were the 
principal writers at that time ; but their 
productions found no echo amongst the 
population, and Willem had then no real 
enemy connected with the press. He read 
some of those harmless publications, without, 
however, remedying the grievances. It 



ITS PKESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 201 

would have been better for him if lie had 
not perused them ; at least if he had not 
paid any attention to the absurd financial 
schemes of Peter Jansen, for then he would 
neyer have known the man whose very name 
alone, in later years, penetrated him with 
anguish. Some mystery surrounded the 
degree of acquaintanceship existing between 
the king and Adrian. The latter had, dur- 
ing a few years prior to 1840, a large 
factory near Leyden, worth many thousand 
guilders. As he possessed no fortune what- 
ever of his own, it was generally supposed 
that the king, when Prince of Orange, had 
found him the means for the acquisition of 
that establishment. Adrian carried on his 
business with some success, until he made 
hazardous speculations, and commenced 
living on a grand scale. He failed, and the 
enemies he had made for himself by his 
airs and arrogance, among the higher classes 
of Leyden, caused him to be prosecuted on 
account of fraudulent bankruptcy; and 
accused of that crime, he entered the prison 
of the Hague in 1841. On the occasion of 



202 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ) 

his trial before the assizes of the Provincial 
Court of South Holland, he summoned as 
a witness for his defence, no less a personage 
than the king himself, who, of course, did 
not appear in person. Some facts were 
revealed, during the progress of the case, 
which created a strange suspicion as to the 
reasons which could have induced the Prince 
of Orange to assist Adrian, who had formerly 
been a private in the army during the Bel- 
gian war, to the extent of such considerable 
sums as were required for starting his exten- 
sive factory. After his acquittal, Adrian sold 
some documents to the Secretary- General of 
the Ministry of Justice, Muller, in conside- 
ration of which Willem II. allowed him a 
monthly pension, which was paid up to the 
time of the king's death, when he commenced 
writing on political affairs, and even accused 
the Eeferendaris, D'Engelbronner, of wilful 
murder. 

The health of King Willem II. was rather 
delicate. From his early university- days at 
Oxford, he plunged into revelry and de- 
bauchery, and as his sordid father, when 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 203 

King of the United Netherlands, kept him 
from all participation in public affairs, his 
fierce, lively temper sought distraction in 
bacchanalian orgies in Brussels, shortly after 
his marriage with the sister of the late Eus- 
sian Emperor Nicholas. The sort of volup- 
tuous life he led, had, as before observed, 
dissolved the vigour of his mind ; and, very 
naturally, the frame in which that mind had 
an abode had not, comparatively, suffered less. 
His entire constitution was enfeebled, and his 
nervous system continually became weaker. 
Libidinousness in the camp, in 1835, was the 
cause of one of those serious attacks of ill- 
ness which gave a shock to the system, the 
consequences of which never wholly disap- 
peared. He was so dangerously ill at that 
time, that his life was despaired of, and he 
never entirely recovered the health and 
strength with which he was formerly blessed. 
Whenever formality created no hindrance, 
he took a Manilla cigar, and his almost 
continual smoking, which he never would, 
or could, leave off, contributed greatly to 
his constant nervousness. His digestion 



204 HOLLAND ! ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



was only what it could be under such cir- 
cumstances. He was a very poor eater, — 
so much so that, whenever he invited his 
ministers at the royal table, they took their 
dinner at home before they din<*I at the 
palace, in order not to have the appearance 
of gourmands. Willem II. was not, as his 
father was, a very early riser. He usually 
left his bed at eight in the summer and 
nine in the winter — and sometimes later. 
His breakfast consisted of the yellow of two 
hard boiled eggs, with bread* and tea. He 
lighted a cigar after such a scanty meal, 
took a walk for a few minutes, and drank a 
glass of Xeres wine. It was only then 
that he began to collect his senses, and 
that his naturally amiable disposition shone 
through the despondency of intemperance. 
After having perused his private corre- 
spondence, he gave his receptions, which 
were generally first to the director of his 
cabinet, ^\Ir. Yan Eappard, and then to those 
of his ministers who desired to communicate 
with him. Private audiences were given 



ITS PEESS, KINGS, AXD PRISONS. 205 

at twelve or one o'clock, or at five or seven 
in the evening, just before or after dinner. 
Willem II. was an exceedingly clever gour- 
met. He tippled the finest wines in the 
course of the day, and partook of them 
freely during the evening. It was in that 
state of intoxication, when the extended 
nerves caused a temporary excitement and 
pleasant palpitations, that he forgot his sta- 
tion as a king, and his dignity as a man. 
It was during those moments that he lost 
all sense of common prudence, and spoke 
and wrote to persons of different conditions, 
as if they had been his intimate friends, and 
on terms equal with him. 

The strictest economy was practised in 
the king's household, and plenty did not 
reign in his kitchens. The victualling de- 
partment of his palace was on a military 
footing, and nothing could be received or 
delivered without control. Even the fourrier, 
in the queen's service, had to give a bon 
if he desired any article — as, for instance, 
gin — from the stores in the palace, and par- 



206 Holland : its institutions; 

simony seemed to have been studied by the 
originator of the regulations in the royal 
menage. And yet that man, so niggardly in 
his household, undoubtedly spent more 
money than any man of his time. The 
royal salary was, by the constitution of 
1840, reduced to a million of guilders per 
annum ; but besides this, there was a reve- 
nue of from six to eight hundred thousand 
guilders, derived from the royal domains. 
His queen was one of the most wealthy, 
and, at the same time, one of the most 
avaricious women that ever existed ; but he 
knew how to obtain money from her. More 
than once she gave him a million of guil- 
ders on the anniversary of his birthday. He 
also borrowed money from Amsterdam ca- 
pitalists, under promise of restitution at his 
father's death. 

Willem II. spent no less than between 
six and seven millions of guilders per an- 
num, and there were years when he la- 
vished much more than that enormous sum. 
In what extravagances, one feels inclined 
to ask, was such a vast amount of treasure 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 207 

swallowed up ? In answer to this question, it 
must, in the first place, be stated that Willem 
never touched the public treasure, or gave 
away money which did not belong to him. 
He had not the power to do so. All the 
gratuities and pensions, therefore, which he 
personally accorded, were paid out of his 
own chatouille, and it must be acknowledged 
that he assisted many hundreds every year. 
He was happy himself when he could make 
others happy, and he very seldom refused 
to help when unmerited distress and suffer- 
ing appealed to him. A great number of 
men, who had rendered him real or ima- 
ginary services, lived constantly upon his 
magnanimity. Large amounts were distri- 
buted in Belgium to pay the king's friends, 
and to keep the Orangist party in existence. 
Considerable sums were also invested in the 
building of several farms, and the tilling of 
uncultivated land, in the neighbourhood of 
the Hague, and Scheveningen, and of Til- 
burg. His palace in the Hague was em- 
bellished and aggrandised at his own ex- 
pense ; and, besides, he erected a new one 



208 HOLLAND I ITS INSTITUTIONS j 



at Tilburg, which, however, he never lived 
to inhabit. The most choice trees, shrubs, 
and flowers, the greater part of exotic 
origin, and very expensive, were planted in 
his grounds. His cabinet of pictures and 
engravings formed another heavy item of 
expenditure. He fancied himself a connois- 
seur, and was highly offended when his judg- 
ment of the beaux arts was called into ques- 
tion. The picture dealers were aware of 
his weakness and profited by it. However 
averse he was to flattery generally, he was 
the victim of it whenever there was a cri- 
ticism of paintings. The dealers usually 
accosted him when he arrived at Tilburg ; 
and it happened on one occasion, that he had 
not been there longer than an hour, and 
had spent seventy thousand guilders on a 
few pictures. When these speculators had 
a very interesting piece for sale, they would 
not put a price upon it, but left it to the 
king to fix its value, as no one, they said, 
could do so better ; and in that manner he 
often paid ten times more than any one else 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 209 



would have done. Last, but not least, in 
this long reckoning, were the hundreds of 
thousands of guilders cast into the same 
abyss of abomination in which his honour 
and dignity were irretrievably lost. 

About this part of the reign of Willem II. 
there was a very prevalent rumour about a 
Protestant minister of the name of Kremer, 
residing in Heeze, the same village near 
which I was attacked on my return from 
France to Holland. The spiritual comforter 
was at the same time an oculist, and hun- 
dreds of patients came from all parts of the 
country, and even from Belgium, to place 
themselves under his care and treatment. 
As is always the case with great public 
men, Mr. Kremer had a large number of ad- 
herents, and a still greater number of enemies, 
the latter being chiefly among the medical 
profession. Pamphlets in favour of, and 
against the minister-oculist were the order 
of the day. In some of them he was repre- 
sented as a philanthropist, abnegating all 
private interests ; in others, he was painted 
as a mountebank, selling his drugs, not at 

p 



210 HOLLAND ! ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



fixed prices, it was true, but in the expec- 
tation of receiving presents and gifts, and 
applying for every affection of the eye the 
same medicament, namely, a panacea, 
which, very likely, was not worth a far- 
thing, and which it had not yet been ascer- 
tained destroyed or improved the organ of 
.vision. 

The spring of 1842 was drawing to 
a close, when I received a hint that the 
king would like to know something farther 
of the clerico-medical man. I also received 
a letter from one of the patients at Heeze, 
requesting me to spend a few summer days 
in that healthy and singularly romantic 
place; and as I felt a want of relaxation, 
I determined to make my journey useful as 
well as pleasant. On going thither, I pro- 
posed at the same time to make myself more 
intimate with the manners, customs, and 
peculiarities of the inhabitants and the pro- 
vince of Xord-Brabant itself, and I conse- 
quently made my journey, as far as re- 
garded that place, on foot. On crossing the 
Maese, and going towards the meridian, one 



* 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS, 211 



cogently feels that it is that estuary which 
forms the natural boundary between the two 

m 

countries. The difference between Nord- 
Brabant and Belgium is scarcely percep- 
tible; but there is no similarity whatever 
between the North and the South of the 
line, of which the ]\Ioerdyk forms the prin- 
cipal point. Nature did not intend making 
that large province an integral part of Hol- 
land, and indeed it never was, geographi- 
cally and politically, but only an appendix 
to it. 

Three different races dwell in the two 
kingdoms of Holland and Belgium, — the 
Dutch, the Flemish, and AValloon, — and it 
is a mistake that, if not all united under 
one and the same government, there should 
be two instead of three distinct States. If 
that anomaly did not exist. Xord-Brabant 
most decidedly would belong to Flanders. 
The ah 1 one breathes in that province is 
not like the vaporous atmosphere hovering 
above the swamps of Holland, — it is ge- 
nuine Flemish air, creating rich and pure 
blood, and a gay and spirited temper. Its 



212 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

soil is as well suited for agriculture as Hol- 
land's is for pasture. Manners and dress are 
quite different. The language is not the 
same e on both sides of the river, and the 
religion is also the reverse, — for more than 
nine-tenths of Hord- Brabant's population 
confess the Eoman Catholic faith. The 
rural districts are, like those of Belgium, 
under the baneful sway of the priesthood, 
and those propagators of darkness unfortu- 
nately possess an absolute authority over the 
poor and uninstructed. They interfere with 
all that belongs to life, and with what 
does not belong to it. They order their 
flocks not only what to believe and think, 
but what to do, what to avoid, what to eat, 
what to drink, what to say, and what to 
conceal. Their attention extends even to 
the dress the people wear, and tailor-like 
instructions are now and then delivered from 
the pulpit, particularly as regards the ap- 
parel of women. It was in the Catholic 
church, of Heeze, that I heard a priest com- 
mand his female auditors to have their 
gowns closed up under the chin, and care- 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 213 

fully to shuffle the breasts under the arm- 
pits, in order that they should not excite 
the fancy of the opposite sex. The same 
worthy ecclesiastic used to exclaim, when- 
ever a Protestant patient of Kremer entered 
the Catholic church — " There they come, 
there they are ; the plagues from the North ; 
they come here trying to destroy your 
future happiness, to bereave you of your 
participation in the kingdom of heaven, to 
bring misery upon you, your wives, and 
your children. Therefore, beware ; have as 
little as possible to do with them ; shun 
them like devils !" I heard him say these 
words when, at some occasion, I entered 
his church. He pointed at the same time 
to myself and two friends who were 
within the walls. It was, however, chiefly 
owing to these " plagues" that Heeze 
owed its material prosperity. Nearly all 
the families of the village received patients, 
who paid a comparatively handsome sum for 
board and lodging. 

I found Kremer to be a good-looking 
little man, of about forty years of age. He 



214 



HOLLAND : ITS IXSTITITIOXS J 



had a very open face — every feature of 
which, spoke of kindness and urbanity. 
Having made all sorts of inquiries in the 
village, among the patients as well as among 
the inhabitants. I applied to him for infor- 
mation, which he gave me with readiness 
and compliance. I was soon a guest at his 
table, and had at all times access to him 
— except when he was in his laboratory, 
where nobodv obtained admittance. 

Minute and impartial reports gathered on 
the spot, did not allow me long to doubt 
the efficacv of Kreiners treatment, and of 
the considerable number of human beings to 
whom he restored that most precious of all 
our faculties — the evesi^ht. Whether his 
medicines were or were not a panaceam, wa 
of verv small weight with me, looking as 
I did on the undeniable results they pro- 
duced, and the blessings the noble minister 
spread around him. Fully convinced that 
the balance of ^ood and evil was in fini tely 
in his favour. I communicated to him mv 
intention of publishing a pamphlet about 
him and his operations, giving him to un- 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 215 

derstancl that his name had been mentioned 
in high quarters, where there was an anx- 
iety to learn the truth respecting him. It 
struck me that he was much better ac- 
quainted with the king than a clergyman of 
a small village could be expected to be. He 
had on more than one occasion spoken to 
AVillem II., and knew his manners and in- 
clinations. Aware of my standing in a 
favourable position at Court, he earnestly 
requested me to publish the pamphlet, with 
my name as author. In the various inter- 
views I had with that good-hearted man, I 
at last plainly noticed that an idea, or a 
hope, lay at the bottom of his benevolent 
actions. 

How could that humble preacher foster 
a keen desire of possessing earthly dis- 
tinctions, which, in reality, are nothing 
but tokens of human folly and delusion ? 
That which filled his heart and his brain, 
which was silently but continually preying 
upon his mind, was the order of the Lion 
of the Netherlands. Undoubtedly, the 
thought of the possession of that order kept 



216 HOLLAND: ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 

him many nights without sleep, and num- 
berless dreams tricked the coveted piece of 
metal and ribbon on and from his breast. 
A height of happiness such as few faces 
could reflect, appeared on his radiant visage 
when I promised to use my endeavours in 
procuring it for him. From that time the 
Lion was no more an impossibility, — no 
longer the nightmare of his imagination ; it 
was an expected gratification, of which he 
had been despairing during a great portion 
of his useful life. Kremer gave me the 
names and residences of upwards of a hun- 
dred patients whose sight he had restored, 
and the inquiries I set on foot, proved to me 
that his statements were perfectly correct. 

In some instances, he had cured sufferers 
who had been given up as hopeless by 
other doctors. He examined the patients 
on their arrival with the utmost care, and 
then told them his opinion. Only in cases 
where the vision was extinct, and the eye 
had lost the last organisation of sight, did 
he refuse to take a person under his treat- 
ment, which would have been useless, — but 



ITS PKESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 217 

as long as any life was left in tlie eye he 
gladly offered his services, no matter whe- 
ther the complaint was one of the most 
serious description, as amaurosis, cataract, 
&c. I firmly believe that only one ingre- 
dient formed the basis of all his composi- 
tions, and that that ingredient was acidum 
sulphuric urn. The lotion was administered 
by girls of the village, usually three times 
a day, and the trifle the patients had to 
pay for their services was all the outlay of 
the kind they had to make. Kremer never 
charged anything, either for his attendance 
or for his medicine. He, probably, now and 
then accepted presents from wealthy persons 
whom he had cured, but, on the other hand, 
he often assisted poor sufferers so far as his 
means would allow. Not the slightest pe- 
cuniary advantages or prospects guided that 
man's actions — all that he desired for his 
eminent services was, as he called it, a royal 
mark of distinction. 

The very first clay that I arrived in 
Heeze, I met a young lady I had never seen 
before; but it appeared at once as if we 



218 



HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 



had been old acquaintances. Her name was 
Cornelia Vogel. When her first serious 
look lingered on my eye, apparently unwil- 
ling to retire, my heart beat quicker, a mys- 
terious vibration came over mv nerves, and 
an inward voice seemed to warn me that 
there would be a fatality between her and 
myself. She resided in Heeze, not as a 
patient, but, strange to say, under the sur- 
veillance of Dr. Kreiner. She was twenty- 
two years of age, and very respectably con- 
nected. That was all the information I had 
at that time. As regarded her exterior, 
there was a pleasing but grave symmetry 
in her complexion. She had all the appear- 
ance of a young woman of high station, 
favoured by the gifts of nature. Her high 
round forehead bore the stamp of thought- 
fulness and sad meditation. Her hair was 
jetty black, and so were her long eyelashes. 
]STo red hue ever covered her cheek, and her 
face had only one colour, — soft, melancholy, 
light yellow, excepting only her steady blos- 
som-like lips, round which a laugh was 
never visible, although they concealed a set 



ITS PKESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 219 

of alabaster teeth. I cannot say that there 
ever existed any material love between us, 
and still from the first moment, we sought 
and saw each other, by day and by night, 
as often as we could clandestinely do it. A 
sudden, involuntary, affinity had penetrated 
both, and we resigned ourselves to it, without 
either of us asking who the other was. She 
had received an excellent education, and wrote 
and spoke the French, Italian, English, Ger- 
man, and Dutch languages fluently, and was 
an accomplished pianist. When in a com- 
municative mood, her words proved that 
she possessed a good judgment and general 
knowledge. She did not much respect her 
earthly existence, considering life rather as 
a loathsome consequence of an accidental 
passion of her generator, than as a gift of 
heaven. Being a misanthrope, she looked 
with more regard upon the unfeigned brute, 
than upon that composition of falsehood and 
pretension — man. Her indifference con- 
cerning the human creation made her ne- 
glectful of all aspiration and consideration. 
She had no desire to excel, no wish to court 



220 Holland: its institutions ; 

approbation. Thoroughly acquainted with 
ancient and modern history, we made them 
often the topics of our conversation, which 
generally elicited her bitter remarks, the 
more striking as they were too true to 
admit of rational contradiction. She con- 
sidered past and present generations all 
alike in arrogance, folly, and wickedness, 
the only difference being the rough daub- 
ing or fine painting, according to the 
kind of hypocrisy, going by the name of re- 
ligion, which more or less screened their 
deformities. 

To prolong my stay in Heeze, I made a 
summary of the work I intended to publish. 
Cornelia and I met always as secretly as pos- 
sible, but her guardian, Kremer, at last got 
scent of it. He did not presume that our 
intimacy was complete, but so anxious was 
he for his pupil, that his mere believing us 
to converse together now and then, made 
him politely request me to oblige him by 
finding, without further delay, a good pub- 
lisher in the Hague, in order that the pam- 
phlet I was preparing might soon be brought 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 221 



to light. At last I resolved upon returning 
to the Hague. I agreed with Cornelia to 
take her from Heeze as soon as I had made 
proper arrangements. Never did I promise 
to marry her, nor did she request me to 
do so, or even make the slightest allusion 
to a marriage. I knew very well, however, 
in what state she was when I printed the 
farewell kiss on her lips ; but what I 
did not know at that time was, that I left 
a natural daughter of Willem II., enceinte, 
behind me. 

The work on the treatment and the cure 
of disease of the eye by the philanthropic 
oculist, was published a few weeks after- 
wards ; within the next two years, the good 
man reached the pinnacle of his wishes, and 
obtained the sole object of his ambition, the 
Order of the Lion of the Netherlands, of 
which he was made a chevalier, — but I never 
saw Heeze, nor Kramer, nor Cornelia Vogel 
again. 



222 



HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 



CHAPTEE XII. 

Description of the Hague. — Its Inhabitants and its 
Manners. — My depending upon the King's Gratuities 
against my Feelings. — Eupture with Yan Bappard 
and the Court.— Beturn to Groningen. 

The Hague is one of the finest places on 
the surface of the earth, and stands foremost 
in the rank of open towns for neatness, 
comeliness, comfort, and recreation. No 
gorgeous palaces or decayed hovels form 
there the hideous contrasts which, in large 
cities of royal abode, fill the observer with 
pain and commiseration, and make him feel 
unhappy himself. There are palaces indeed 
— royal palaces, too — but their exterior shows 
no pretension to that high-sounding deno- 



ITS PEESS, KINGS, AKD PRISONS. 223 

mination ; and they are inferior in number 
of stones, and timber, windows, and doors, 
to many of those extensive, costly buildings 
in which English merchant-princes reside. 
Indigence is there to be found, as in all 
other countries, but poverty is not there 
what it is in large manufacturing towns — 
absolute misery and abjectedness. Those 
huts and dens of wretchedness and starva- 
tion which, in nearly all the capitals, form 
their peculiar quarters or streets, do not 
disgrace the quiet, earnest, and uniform 
Hague. It is bare of such extremes in its 
outward aspect, and it does not look the 
worse for it. Its streets are nearly all spa- 
cious and commodious, lined on both sides 
with clean, level trottoirs, made of yellow 
bricks, with their sides upwards. Its prin- 
cipal squares are nearly in the centre of the 
town, one running into the other. Like all 
other towns in Holland, the Hague is inter- 
sected with canals or grachten, but not so 
superfluous as to disparage it. The Dutch- 
man, sturdy as he may be, loves trees, flow- 
ers, and birds, and does not banish them 



224 



HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 



from the place where he daily rests, breathes, 
and works, but prefers to surround himself 
with these precious gems of kind nature, 
and to live in their cheerful company. * 
They awake soft and silent emotions in the 
breast, and he loves them so much that he 
cannot be in good spirits without them. To 
hear from your bedroom window, on your 
awakening in the morning, the lovely song 
of the little goldfinch, mingled with the 
mysterious noise of the nameless words, 
whispered by the verdant tree, standing be- 
fore your own shop or office — must needs 
influence your temper, and tune your soul 
for sublime conceptions. The Hague and its 
immediate neighbourhood has a tree, a 
flower, and a bird for each of its 80,000 
inhabitants. 

The grachten are on both sides embel- 



* Personal Dames bear witness to this peculiarity. 
Thousands of Hollanders bear the names of Boom 
(tree), Bloem (flower), and Vogel (bird) ; and still more 
the compounds of those names, as Boomgaard (grove), 
Bloemhof (flower - garden), Vogelberg (bird's moun- 
tain), &c. 



ITS PKESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 225 

lislied with trees, and so are the Voorkout, 
the Vyverberg, and other streets and squares. 
All trees and shrubs on public ground are 
public property ; no ugly iron rails surround 
them, and degrade them to secluded parks. 
The vagrant has a right to an equal share 
of the refreshing shade offered by the fo- 
liage as the most exalted personage in the 
realm. Behind many of the dwelling-houses, 
small as well as large, is a carefully cul- 
tivated garden, teeming with the gay or- 
naments of vegetable life, and favourably 
differing from the prosaic English yards with 
their dismal appearance of loneliness and 
death. The atmosphere is, of course, a 
Dutch one, and the smell of the stagnant 
water of the grachten is sometimes, during 
hot weather, very offensive. The western 
sea-breeze, however, which reaches the town 
from a distance of three miles, and through 
a succession of groves, circulates freely along 
the capacious streets, and sweeps the effuses 
of the marshes to other parts. There was once 
a plan to transform the Hague into a sea- 
port, and a splendid canal was cut from the 

Q 



226 HOLLAXD : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



grachten of the town as far as the downs 
in the vicinity of Sclieyeningen, and about 
a mile from the shores washed by tlie tur- 
bulent German Ocean. Tliis was done dur- 
ing the first years of the reign of Wil- 
lem I. If such a plan had been projected 
and undertaken in the British Isles, it cer- 
tainly would have been brought to a prac- 
tical result witliin a few years. But the 
Dutch Goyernment of that time declared the 
further construction subject for reconsidera- 
tion, and, consequently, the canal was left 
as it is to this day — -unfinished and use- 
less. The completion of the work on an 
extensiye scale, and according to a well- 
conceiyed plan, would haye made the Hague 
one of the principal ports on theXorth Sea, and 
ekyated it to one of the chief emporiums 
of the world. To create, by the hand of man, 
an inlet from the ocean, into a land where not 
eyen a creek is formed by the mighty work- 
manship of nature, is a task of great mo- 
ment, attended with considerable expense, 
and requiring sound judgment, skill, and 
perseverance ; but that such enterprises, in 



ITS PRESS, KTffOSj AND PRISONS. 



227 



cases like the present, are feasible, experience 
has long placed beyond a doubt. The put- 
ting the North Sea in direct contact with the 
Hague, would be a worthy pendant to the great 
undertaking that transformed a lake of a hun- 
dred miles in circumference — the Haerlem- 
mtrmeer — into dry tillable ground and fertile 
pasturages. 

Probably a bright future, restoring; to Hoi- 
land true freedom, and imparting to it the 
liberal commercial spirit of the age, may 
bring a merchant fleet to the quays of the 
Hague, and another generation may, proba- 
bly, see the vigorous waters of the ocean 
cleansing the now stinking grachts. — To the 
north of the Hague is the delightful Haag- 
sche Bosch. Xo tiresome distance inter- 
venes, for only two fields of grass, in which 
deer peaceably graze, form a green line of 
demarcation ; nor is the transition abrupt, 
for houses line the eastern, and tents the 
south-western part of the wood, like as the 
trees line the houses of the beautiful town. 
The little forest describes a square of about 
two miles in length, and half a mile broad. 

Q 2 



228 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS; 

It is thickly covered with different sorts 
of trees, and intersected by many fish- 
ponds, lanes, paths, and pleasant walks. To 
the south-east of the Hagne rims the canal 
to Delft, which, on both sides is covered 
with villas and groves. Yoorhout and 
Kyswyk, the latter well known by the 
treaty of peace of 1697, are two charm- 
ing villages between the two towns. South- 
west from the Hague is the more rural 
road and canal to Loosduinen; and west, 
the allee to Scheveningen, overshadowed by 
majestic trees. The aspect of the envi- 
rons of the Hague variegate with the com- 
pass, and all of them have their peculiar 
sort of gradation. The town itself con- 
tains many edifices of historical interest, 
of which the ancient castle of the Stadt- 
holders of the United Provinces is the 
most remarkable. The large hall of that 
once formidable building was, under WS1- 
lem L, degraded to a royal Lotery Zaal — sa- 
loon for lottery.* 



* Instituted in accordance with the abominable sys- 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 229 



111 the vicinity of the former strongholds 
are rooms of out-houses forming a square, 
in the back-ground of which the Lotery Zaal 
stands. A century ago the officers of the 
Prince of Orange occupied them, and they 
now serve partly as the meeting-place of the 
members of the Staten General, and partly 
as cabinets of some departments of the 
public service. The several ministerial 
hotels are all situated on the large squares, 
and so are the palaces, with the exception 
of that which was once occupied by Wil- 
lem L, and which now has for its inmate 
Willem III. 

Isbneof the numerous churches possess any - 



tem which aimed by all possible means to turn public 
attention from political affairs, and which is still in 
existence in Holland and other Continental States. Be- 
fore the revolutionary storms of 1848, the contrivance 
was called " Konuiklyhe Nederlandsclie Lotery" (Royal 
Lottery of the Netherlands), and after that time the 
Staats-Lotery (Lottery of the State). We believe the 
system to have been an unfair one ; and that lottery is 
a national scandal. It produces a few thousand guil- 
ders for the treasury, but it brings many individuals to 
inconvenience and misery. 



230 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 

thing peculiarly interesting, and the Boyal 
Theatre is the only theatre the Hague can 
boast of. The representations are given as 
frequently by French as by Dutch drama- 
tists, the first being, however, generally 
much favoured above the Dutchmen. A 
narrow-minded, aristocratic etiquette, pitiful 
and ludicrous at the same time, has drawn 
scrupulous distinctions between different 
classes, and not according to the quality of 
the man, but according to the rank of the 
slave of the king, or the servant of the state, 
is the admittance into one of the societeiten 
(clubs) granted or refused. The other places 
of public resort are the koffyhuizen-j under 
which denomination must be placed inns and 
taverns, as well as common public-houses. 
ISTo true scion of a place-hunting or aristo- 
cratic family ever enters these houses, to 
which the greater part of the male population 
resort for peaceable conversation and diver- 
tissement * From time to time a ball or 



* The public-houses on the Continent are not the cause 
of so much misery as those of Great Britain. The latter 



ITS PRESS, KIXGS, AND PRISONS. 231 



concert is given at one of the palaces, or at 
one of the ambassadorial or ministerial hotels, 
or in places of more modest life ; and these 
are the principal public relaxations in the 
Hague. But a certain spirit of reserve per- 
vades and spoils all these amusements, and 
its pernicious effects are felt whenever there 
is a contact between man and man. Beau- 
tiful, open, and inviting, is nature in and 
around the Hague, but coldness and formality 
characterise the exterior action of its inhabi- 
tants. The fact is, that in all continental 



require a thorough reform to put a stop to the disgrace- 
ful druukenness and its awful consequences. Teetotalism, 
or entire abstinence, will never do as a general rule. 
The good it does is exceptional. Moreover, men ex- 
posed to damp and cold, living in boreal countries like 
this, sometimes require a cordial and refreshing draught. 
Thousands of people daily make appointments to meet 
in public-houses. Their business, or their interest, or 
gratification of conversation, induces them to go there. 
Such is the case on the Continent as well as in the British 
Isles; but there is this difference : in the latter the 
visitor is obliged to drink either flat wine, enervating 
spirits, stupifying ale, dull porter, or apathetic ginger- 
beer. On the Continent, where the public-houses are 
conducted on another, infinitely superior plan, one can 



232 HOLLAND : ITS institutions ; 



residences of sovereignty the power of moral 
inflexibility reigns, and especially among 
the numerous classes of persons forming the 
bureaucratie. The voluntary or involuntary 
impulse emanating from a mortal being, who 
sits, either by accident or by a convention 
degrading to humanity, on a set of planks 
covered with silk or satin, and called a 
throne, penetrates into the customs and man- 
ners, aye, into the sacred household affairs, 
and into the personality of his equals, resid- 
ing in the same town as himself, but not 

take what he likes, without being compelled to swallow 
intoxicating drinks. He can be served with a cup of 
chocolate or of tea, of coffee or of bouillon, with a glass 
of water and sugar ( eau sucree J, &c. ; and bigotry is not 
successful there in interfering with innocent games, as 
billiards, chess, draughts, dominoes, cards, &c, which 
are daily played in respectable continental public-houses. 
There the glass does not always stand before one's eyes. 
And this, really, is the main — let me say the only reason 
— that soberness is the standard rule on the Continent, 
and drunkenness the rare exception. It is not here the 
place to enter upon relative details ; but this most im- 
portant subject is worthy the mature study of philan- 
thropists. To assert that the English have a "propensity 
for drinking and drunkenness is an absurdity — if not an 
outrage on common sense. 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AXD PRISONS. 233 



sitting on similar planks. As if it were not 
enough, of shame and degradation to be, 
according to what is called constitution or 
law, the doomed slave of such a man, the 
submission must be completed by aping the 
taste, the inclinations, the anomalies, and 
the depravity of the royal or imperial master 
and his mistress. Ceremonious people they 
are, those inhabitants who have the honour 
of inhaling nosopoetic ichor, vapouring forth 
from royal and princely abodes, for ceremony 
is the sister of falsehood, and both are satel- 
lites of thrones. Courtesy is degenerated 
civility ; friendly as is the latter, so heart- 
less is the former. People in the Hague are 
very courteous, for courtesy is cultivated 
in the palaces ; but confidence-creating 
civility is a strange article in the royal 
town of Holland. Under that glossy mask 
of social life, however, runs the current 
of the wildest passions and unbounded ex- 
travagances; and virtue, rare, but sublime, 
and crimes which have no names — the quin- 
tessence of what is good, but insignificant in 
proportion to the concentrations of all that is 



234 HOLLAND ! ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

evil — are hidden behind the curtain which 
separates the exterior from the interior mode 
of existence. Ambition, idleness, and a love 
of natural voluptuousness, are the principal 
producers of the most awful acts ; and there 
is not, perhaps, a family of high standing in 
the Hague, without some member or relation 
being guilty of some horrid crime. Morality, 
in general, is at a very low ebb, and has 
more of appearance than of reality. Many 
young women are very precocious, and the 
bonds of matrimony do not weigh too heavy 
with either sex. It requires, besides other 
qualities, time and tact to get introduced 
into private circles in the Hague ; but when 
once initiated, a multiplicity of connexions, 
sweet and dangerous, imperceptibly follow, 
and he who is considered to be a man who 
buries the secret of the favours bestowed 
upon him in his own bosom, is a welcome 
guest wherever he appears. 

I lived very retired in the beginning, until 
some adventures swept me into the libertine 
world, and made me change the one tender 
attraction for the other. The companies I 



ITS PKESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 235 

then commenced to frequent were of the 
most multifarious kind, and belonging to all 
classes of society. Despising all rigid for- 
mality, I again appeared in society as I had 
always clone before — decently, but sans 
facon and sans souci. As a protege of the 
king, and keeping far from all ostentation, 
I fancied nobody would interfere with my 
private affairs ; but I was mistaken. On one 
morning, the king's aide-de-camp, Merkes 
Yan Gendt, related to me, almost word for 
word, the tenor of what I considered a 
friendly conversation which I had had the 
evening before in a public-house. His in- 
tention was to prove to me the necessity of 
avoiding company below my station ; but 
his communication had quite another effect. 
I cursed the secret police, and felt a disgust 
at their existence. 

Shortly after my arrival in the Hague, I 
had taken apartments in a house tenanted by 
a pensioned lacquey, who had been for many 
years in the service of Willem I., and who 
was acquainted with many particulars regard- 
ing his former master and his eldest son. I 



236 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ) 

occasionally took my dinner with him and his 
wife, and then had an extra bottle of claret 
sent up, which made the old man talka- 
tive.* He had several times been a witness 
to the exhibition of animosity between Wil- 
lem II. and his royal father. He had seen 
the king, when Prince of Orange, kneeling 
to his mother, the late Queen of the Nether- 
lands, for money. He gave me the names of 
more than twenty persons whom he was 
certain of having had suspicious connection 
with Willem II. The list of that shocking 
enumeration commenced in Brussels as far 
back as 1828. The circumstantial descrip- 
tion of the facts connected therewith, some- 
times made an impression upon me difficult 
to describe ; but although I had no reason 
to doubt the old lacquey's veracity, yet I 
could not harbour the idea that his Majesty 
Xing Willem II. kept his Antinouses, and 
committed horrors, which, during the last 
centuries, were punished by death at the 

* His name was Eyffinger. He was afterwards 
appointed concierge of the Eoman Catholic church-yard, 
between the Hague and Scheveningen. 



ITS PKESS, KIXG J , AND PRISONS. 237 

stake. On the other hand, the thought that 
I accepted assistance from such a man was 
sometimes tormenting and perplexing in the 
extreme. Keenly did I feel that I degraded 
myself by receiving it, when once the chief 
clerk of the king's treasury, in handing to 
me a royal gratuity, with an insolent, scru- 
tinising look, put the impertinent question : 
why I was so much favoured by the king. 
It will be recollected that the king told me, 
at the first interview I had with him, that I 
could at all times have the necessary when- 
ever I applied to him. I did not foresee 
that, when in want, I should have, not to 
apply to but to pray the king to grant me a 
new favour or grace, by giving me more 
money, to make myself every time more de- 
pendent upon him. I will acknowledge that 
I never experienced a refusal, but I was soon 
of opinion that I made a sacrifice of my honour 
by writing to him in a supplicating manner, 
and so much the more so, as he had ceased 
to hand or to send me the required funds 
himself, and I had to receive them either 
through the intermedium of Van Eappard, 



238 



HOLLAND : 



ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 



the secretary of his cabinet, or through that 
of Ragay, his treasurer. This, and the 
irregular sort of my occupations, induced me 
to request the king to appoint me to some 
public office, as he had promised me he 
would do. The reply was, that the office 
which he had in view for me was not yet 
vacant. 

Immediately after my return from Heeze, 
I set busily to work to finish my pamphlet 
about the operations of Kremer, which I 
sold to one of the first publishers in the 
Hague.** The brochure was written in a 
spirit of impartiality and love for truth ; and 
I desired to produce the effect that the 
generous acts of the minister- oculist should 
be appreciated by the public at large. I 
had, however, my name as author only, 
printed in those copies which I made as 
presents to the members of the dynastic 
family, and a few high functionaries, and 

* De genezing der oogziekten door den "Wei Eerwaar- 
den Zeer Geleerden Heer Kremer, Predikant der 
Heryormden te Heeze. Te 's Gravenhage, by J. Tan 
T. Haaff. 1842. 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 239 

purposely left it out of the others, although 
instantly requested by Kremer not to publish 
the work anonymously. The principal rea- 
son that I did not comply with his wishes 
was, that I foresaw that my being on good 
terms with the government might be of 
short duration, and that, when once turned 
against them, my name, publicly connected 
with his own, might perhaps be prejudicial, 
certainly not of any good to him in obtain- 
ing the long-coveted order of the Lion. 

The certainty of my being spied by the 
royal agents of the secret police; the increas- 
ing bitterness of the idea that I was depen- 
dent upon the king's alms, and could 
actually consider myself, what I had feared 
to the utmost, to be in servility ; and at 
some moments, above all, the anxiety about 
Cornelia, tormented my mind and turned 
my head. I was deeply unhappy when left 
to my own meditation, and the only remedy 
for my mental illness was diversion. I 
formerly enjoyed the true charms of Na- 
ture, and could lose myself in quiet con- 
templation, undisturbed by worldly thoughts; 



240 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS \ 

but I now plunged headlong into the abyss 
of ^he pleasures of the Hague, and many 
a precious day I spent in dreams of absorb- 
ing love and voluptuousness, only to awaken 
with an excruciating sentiment of redoubled 
wretchedness. Cornelia wrote to me that 
she feared she would not be able much 
longer to conceal her situation from Kremer, 
and begged me to fetch her away. Un- 
fortunately, my financial resources were 
exhausted through my blameable reckless- 
ness, and the king, on my reluctantly 
applying to him for a new subsidy, allowed • 
me, just now that I required it more than 
ever, a much smaller sum than, after an in- 
terval of many weeks, he usually accorded. 

Seeing that such a state of things could 
not last, I at once reformed my habits, and 
wrote a confidential letter to Van Eappard, 
in which I explained my griefs, and my 
anxiety about the poor patient in Heeze. 
My communications were too candid, and 
my complaints too well based on facts, to 
meet with the reception I experienced. On 
calling upon him for a verbal reply, as I in- 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 241 

timated I should do, he treated me with 
studied coolness, and interwove his re- 
marks with allusions savouring of intimi- 
dation. I soon perceived that he knew 
Cornelia Yogel better than I did, at least 
with regard to her relations, and the episodes 
of her past days. He first desired on his 
own authority, and afterwards on that of his 
master, that I should marry the lady whom 
I had — according to their belief — seduced. 
In yain I repeated what I had already 
written to him, that there was so much 
concealed of her former life to which I 
could find no clue ; that a word had never 
passed between us about marriage ; and 
that she did not come to my arms a virgin. 
I told him that all I knew of her was that 
her father had been a Protestant minister in 
Leyden ; that she had received her educa- 
tion in Harderwyck, and that there were a 
couple of years in her youthful life covered 
with impenetrable mystery, during which, 
I feared, she had been the courtezan of a 
royal prince. I ascertained afterwards 
that I was mistaken, but Yan Eappard, 

R 



242 HOLLAND : ITS institutions ; 

who could have giyen me better informa- 
tion, did not even say a word to appease 
my cruel suspicion. He was extremely 
laconic ; and his only argument was that 
I was, whatever circumstances might exist, 
the father of the expected child. He sug- 
gested my leaving the Hague, and marrying 
her in Wychen, a secluded village in Guel- 
deiiand, there to live happy and retired. 
In that case, a very liberal pension would 
be settled upon me for life, and would 
be regularly forwarded, without my having 
to ask for it any more. Should I not feel 
inclined to comply with that reasonable ar- 
rangement, continued subsidies, he feared, 
could be no longer granted. 

This latter expression fully opened my 
eyes, and filled me with the painful idea of 
my abasement. The blood ran hot through 
my veins, and I emphatically declared to 
him, that, from that moment, I would do 
without his master's favours. Long was I 
ruminating over the unenviable state in 
which I found myself. I concluded that 
want of sufficient experience, and too much 



ITS PRESS, KlffGS, AND PRISONS. 243 

natural goodwill had caused me to be a 
pitiable tool ever since I saw the confidant 
of the prince of Orange, De Kempenaer, in 
Leeuwarden. In all that had transpired, 
especially from the time I resided in the 
Hague, I now discovered the same hand, 
always ready to adjust the strait jacket of 
moral slavery round my temporarily degen- 
erated, but still unsubdued spirit. The hint 
I had received to go to Heeze, my journey 
thither, and its consequences, now appeared 
to me to be the effects of a premeditated 
plan, calculated to bring me into a scrape, 
which would have put the cover on the 
coffin of my liberty. I considered myself 
humiliated, and on the verge of abnegating 
the identity of my soul — but not yet lost. 
Nothing was required to save myself but 
the courage at once to throw off the degrad- 
ing yoke of a libertine ; and that courage 
was revived in me tenfold. The day after 
my colloquy with Van Eappard, I was 
politely requested to be kind enough to come 
to the cabinet of the king, but the desire to 
get rid of the royal nuisance was too great 

2 B 



244 HOLLAND : ITS IXST1TIT10XS J 

not to decline the honour of a reconciliatory 
interview. 

And again I was an honest, simple, and 
sober Eepublican ; again I was a man. 
What sacrifices would I not have made, 
could I have recommenced my political 
career over again ; and how would I have 
avoided the pestiferous atmosphere that 
surrounds those glittering dens of crime, 
infamy, and depravation, called royal palaces. 
But, if I could not recall the past, I could 
at least form a good resolution for the future. 
I had not visited Groningen since I left that 
place on my escape from prison. The best 
course I could now follow, I thought, was 
to return to my old friends and acquaint- 
ances, to ascertain whether sufficient ele- 
ments for the formation of a new democratic 
nucleus were left. I informed Cornelia of 
what had taken place. Sorry as I was that 
I could not fulfil her wishes and our former 
agreement, I besought her to trust in her 
guardian Kremer, who was too good and 
generous a man to deprive her of his friend- 
ship when she would be most in want of it. 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AM) PRISONS. 245 



Thereupon I left for Groningen, firmly 
decided that when another opportunity for a 
Republican revolution should occur. I would 
rather promote a well-directed outburst at 
the risk of my life, than refuse to take the 
lead of it, as a want of noble temerity had 
caused me to do on a former favourable 
occasion. 



246 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



CHAPTER XIII. 

The Printer of the Toll der Vryheid, Bolt, breaks up 
his establishment in Groningen, and I commence to 
publish with him the Onafhanlcelyke in Amsterdam. 
— Prosecutions against the Onafhanhelyhe. — Bolt's 
transactions with the Government. — I return to Paris. 
—Death of Willem I. 

Only two years had elapsed since I had 
left Groningen, but so eventful had that 
period been to me, that it seemed as if a 
decade at least intervened between the day 
of my flight and the day of my return. The 
circumstances under which I left, and those 
which brought me back, were altogether 
different. When I made my escape from 
Groningen, the servile officers of the men 
of justice were on my track, anxious to try 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS, 247 



on me the experiment of four years' im- 
prisonment, afterwards increased to ten ; 
but I laughed merrily at the tools of the 
law, and plunged into the wide "world, with 
a gay heart and an easy mind. I had not, 
on my return to the ancient town, any occa- 
sion to fear being suddenly thrown into 
a dungeon again. I was free, perfectly 
free ! and was not even threatened with a 
prosecution ; but nevertheless, I did not 
enter inside Groningen's walls the same 
cheerful young man I had been. My con- 
science told me that I had been swerving 
from true Republican principles, and even 
when I could reason away the stinging self- 
accusation of political inconsistency, there 
was something else of which I could never 
unburden myself, and that was the weight 
of experience. Happy does the child of 
nature feel on making the discoverv of a 
virtue, or of the shape or of the peculiarity 
of a virtue, hitherto unknown to him, and 
no future can destroy the pleasure of such 
an event in his life. But painfully is his 
mind afflicted every time it is troubled with 



248 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



the thought of the existence of crimes for- 
nierly ignored ; and, althongh no guilt rests 
on his head personally, he fancies, in his 
melancholy moments, that the abhorrences 
committed by his species in general, reflect 
upon the individual, forming as he does an 
ingredient of society, and bitterness fills his 
soul when, speaking to his Creator, he is 
compelled to say that he is ashamed of being 
a human being. 

I was very well received into all the 
places and companies I had been in the 
habit of visiting in Groningen ; and it was 
not without joyful satisfaction I perceived 
that the dogmas which had been propagated 
by the Tolk cler Vryheid had borne their fruit. 
"No vestige of that slavish submission, of 
which I had formerly complained in my paper, 
was longer visible, and a sort of democratic 
spirit characterised the toiling classes. I 
had not heard of the Tolk since my return 
from Paris ; but I now found that the paper 
still existed — in name only — nothing more. 
The number of its subscribers was deci- 
mated, and its contents had ceased to cause 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 249 

patriotic hearts to beat with warm enthu- 
siasm. The poor Talk had been successively 
under the care of a doctor of medicine, of a 
lawyer , and of a chemist, and was quite 
altered by the different manipulations it had 
gone through. I was, as just stated, every- 
where received in a friendly manner ; but I 
soon discovered that I had lost the real friends 
— the men who relied upon me as I could 
rely upon them. The unlimited confidence 
I had enjoyed was shaken, and could not be 
restored by the simple account I gave them, 
about all that I had passed through, and what 
I intended to do. No doubt I could gra- 
duallv have retrieved that confidence, had I 
retaken the direction of the Toll', but I was 
too anxious immediately to make up for the 
past, and to move in an active and positive 
sphere. The publisher, Bolt, had continued 
to issue the paper, not so much on account 
of its being then a lucrative business, as to 
show that he was not reconciled to the go- 
vernment, although Willem II. had ordered 
his release from prison. Altogether he had 
been very roughly treated, for shortly after 



250 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

I left Groningen lie was arrested, hand- 
cuffed, and transported from that place to 
Hoorn, a distance of about 180 miles, and 
in the latter place he was put upon the same 
footing with thieves and scoundrels, and in 
some respects was worse off than the refuse 
of society. He had undergone six months, 
and, consequently, one-fourth of his term of 
imprisonment, when Willem II. made his 
official entry as king into Groningen, on 
which occasion a free pardon was granted to 
him. I had always dealt fairly with Bolt, 
and he was, therefore, delighted to see me 
again. He would at all times, he said, be 
happy to print the productions of my pen, 
and would, if required, follow me with his 
type, his printing presses, &c, wherever I 
thought proper to recommence my political 
career. That offer struck me as speaking 
highly of his attachment to myself and the 
cause I advocated. Bolt resided in a com- 
modious house, in which his father, his grand- 
father, and his great-grandfather had carried 
on for nearly two centuries the printing and 
publishing business. It was there that he 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 251 

and his progenitors were bora ; and so were 
his half-dozen children, of whom the eldest 
was scarcely six years old. His forefathers 
had thriven in that house, and Bolt himself 
had even now no reason to complain. I re- 
quested him to take all these circumstances 
into his mature consideration ; his reply was, 
that he had made up his mind, and he per- 
sisted in the offer he had made. 

I felt there was something grand and 
redeeming in the idea that, after I had been 
looked upon in the Hague as a morally over- 
powered, submissive wretch, satisfied with 
crouching for a bare sustenance, I should 
all on a sudden reappear at the head of a 
Eepublican newspaper, with the same presses 
which had produced the Tolk, ready to divulge 
my thoughts and words. And in order not to 
do things by halves I proposed to Bolt, who 
was only too happy to agree with all that I 
suggested, to publish our paper in the 
largest town of the Xetherlands — Amster- 
dam — not two or three times a-week, but 
daily, and to call it De Onafhankelyhe — " The 
Independent." Arrived at that decision, 



252 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

and all necessary arrangements haying been 
made between Bolt and myself, I did not 
prolong my stay in Groningen, and left for 
Amsterdam, in order the better to become 
acquainted with the social elements of that 
important town, and to prepare for the pub- 
lication of the Onafhankelyke. The bulk of 
the population of Amsterdam may properly 
be divided into three classes. One of them 
is the wealthy mercantile community. As 
egotism is the pivot of business transactions 
and speculations, conceptions of true patriot- 
ism, demanding the sacrifice of private 
interests for the common weal, very seldom 
enter the compact brains of calculating 
representatives of metallic currency. This 
axiom more especially applies to the ex- 
denizens of the fallen maritime republics, 
where the heel of despotism extinguishes the 
last sparks of cosmopolitan and patriotic 
abnegation ; where oppression, shared by all, 
does not cause the formation of association 
and conspirations against the common foe, but 
screws every man in his own room, or 
creates different circles of party interests, 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 253 

divergent, but all having the same point 
cVappui, viz., the touchstone that values 
the performances of human life according to 
profit or loss, to Cr. or Dr., to money. No 
tradesmen can be more solide in their busi- 
ness affairs, fairer in their commercial 
dealings, or more punctual in their pecu- 
niary transactions, than the respectable 
Amsterdam houses ; but the horizon of all 
the actions of the Dutch merchant is 
reflected in his counting-house, and the 
secrets of his excitement sleep within the 
walls of the Exchange. 

There was once a time that the term mer- 
cantile moneyocracy included the significa- 
tions of the words — nobility of mind; that 
time, however, belongs to the bygone days 
of the glorious republic, whose defenders pre- 
ferred death to thraldom. Submission first and 
adulation afterwards, dissolved the patriotic 
virtue of the merchant of Holland in the 
crafty overbearance of the stadtholders and 
kings. Large staple-towns of flourishing 
commerce and industry always attract a 
number of foreign merchants and specu- 



254 



HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ) 



lators, who increase the animosities of the 
trade and extend its field of rotation. These 
foreigners j however, are injurious to the 
interests of the native merchant, when the 
preponderance of their number and influ- 
ence, and the effects of their machinations, 
destroy his fair prospects. They are more 
detrimental still to the nationality of the 
inhabitants. They were principally Ger- 
mans who overflowed Amsterdam, and as 
the majority of German politicians and men 
in business consider Holland to be a geo- 
graphical appendix to Das grosse Deutsche 
Vaterlandj and would like to see the incor- 
poration and absorption of its territory by 
Germany, another result has been that the 
word "Holland," among mercantile classes, 
is a mere name, to which no love of native 
soil is attached. The same may in some 
respects be said of the retail merchants and 
dealers. Here, however, the degeneration is 
neither so great nor so general ; and it must 
be averred that many a shopkeeper and pub- 
lican in Amsterdam is as warm a friend of his 
country as he is an inveterate enemy to its 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 255 

despots and oppressors. This assertion is 
still more applicable to its thousands of 
honest artisans and working men. As for 
the lower characters, they display for the 
greater part in every metropolis the same 
sort of peculiarities, and the constant readi- 
ness for tumult and uproar when the antici- 
pation of coveted plunder is held out to 
them. Likewise unpretending philoso- 
phers and men of the liberal professions are 
in Amsterdam, as in all other places, to a 
great extent republicans, either secretly 
or avowedly. They do not generally walk 
among the crowds of any of the different 
clan : — they march at their side. Passive 
spectators during the usual course of events, 
they put themselves in the vanguard of well- 
arranged movements, tending to the path of 
progress and enlightenment. I was con- 
fident that there were a great number of 
persons of that description in Amsterdam. 
Taking the different dispositions and incli- 
nations altogether, I believed it would not 
be very difficult to form in Holland's capital 
an active centre of republican principles. 



256 HOLLAND : ITS DESTITUTIONS J 



My endeavours, however, to secure literary 
assistance beforehand failed. Amongst the 
persons of some note with whom I tried to 
come to an understanding was a celebrated 
lawyer of the name of Lipman, who boasted 
that he was willing to contribute with his 
pen and his gold to all undertakings aiming 
at the extension of freedom and general 
happiness. He was a Jew, and it would 
appear as if all eminent men of that persua- 
sion, when ascending the flight of politics, 
imbibe some peculiar sort of charlatanry, 
inducing the unceremonious and unselfish 
defender of his opinions to recede from their 
acquaintance. 

Bolt arrived in Amsterdam in April, 1843, 
and a vessel containing his presses and types, 
conveyed by his Groningen compositors and 
printers, soon followed, and within a week from 
the arrival of the latter, the first number of 
the OnafhanhelyTce circulated through the Xe- 
therlands. A second, a third, and a fourth 
specimen number were gratuitously distri- 
buted, and the subscribers having freely 
come forward, the date on which the regular 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 257 

publication should take place was agreed 
upon. A few days before that time Bolt 
requested me in a friendly way, that as he 
always returned my manuscripts with the 
proofs, I should sign a copy of each of the 
issued papers, only as a guarantee, pro forma, 
his wife having desired him to do so. As he 
knew by experience that I was not mean 
enough to allow him or anybody else to be 
answerable for what I wrote, I could not 
help wondering at his conduct. He was, 
moreover, so obsequious in his behaviour, that 
I suspected something unusual had happened. 
As, however, I had always known him to 
be sincere and straightforward, I could not 
fancy that he was actually engaged in a plot 
against me, and, to tranquillize his scrupulous 
wife, I did not hesitate a moment to give 
him the desired signatures. 

During the latter part of the same day I 
rec3ived a dajvaarding or summons to appear 
before the regter-commissariS) or interroga- 
tory judge of the district tribunal in Am- 
sterdam, an indictment having been found 
by that tribunal against all the four editions 

s 



258 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS; 

of the paper. I had given myself no 
uncommon pains to write these first pro- 
ductions in the genuine Dutch style — 
lukewarm ; and had preferred no direct ac- 
cusations against any authority. In spite of 
my moderation, one or two articles in each 
number were picked out, and according to 
the instructions of Van Hall, the alter ego of 
King Willem IT., the compliant judges in 
Amsterdam ordered a prosecution to be set 
on foot. One of those articles was an inno- 
cent plagiarism, taken from a newspaper 
against which no judiciary complaint was 
ever laid. 

On the morning of the day when I had to 
appear before the judge, I received a letter 
from a person in the Hague, with whom I 
had been on amicable terms, and who, 
although not directly connected with the 
employes of the king, or other functionaries, 
was nevertheless generally well infoimed as 
to what was going on in higher quarters. 
From him I learnt that a creature of the 
secret police had, sometime before, when in 
Amsterdam, invited Bolt to come over and 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 259 

pay him a visit in the Hague, and on that oc- 
casion the latter had been induced to sell his 
presses and his liberty of action, and to enter 
into a conspiracy against me. The nature of 
the plot was, that Bolt was to receive a good 
sum, at least double the value for all which 
belonged to his printing establishment ; and 
further, a monthly stipend, for all of which 
he had nothing to do but to abstain from pub- 
lishing. This arrangement was made with 
a view of leaving me without an opportunity 
of editing a daily newspaper in Amsterdam, 
as all the other printers of any note and 
means were thought to be too cowardly, de- 
pendent, slavish, or selfish, to embark in a 
similar affair.* It had further been arranged 
that Bolt should every time promise and 
postpone the promise of honorary payment ; 
and that as soon as they had contrived to 

* No daily paper of republican tendencies was ever 
published in Amsterdam. The first writer who, during 
the fatherly portion of the reign of Willem I. edited a 
weekly newspaper in that town, written in a good style, 
and very cleverly conducted, was more than once sen- 
tenced, and died a victim to tyranny in the prison of 
Den Bosch. I forget his name. 



260 HOLLAND I ITS IXSTITTTTIOXS J 

get me further into debt, I should be im- 
prisoned on that account, the personal 
hostage for debts in Holland being a term of 
five years for every party to whom another 
is indebted. 

In the meantime I was every now and 
then to be summoned before the regter-com- 
missaris, to prevent my having any repose or 
inclination for steady business, and to push 
me forward in the slippery and dangerous 
path of dissipation. It was on the next day, 
my friend added, that Bolt was to receive 
the first roval reward for his treachery, at 
the house of Jan Wap, the ex-editor of the 
Noord Brabanter, whose name has been before 
mentioned. 

For an instant I was perplexed. I des- 
pised as much as ever the abominable inter- 
ference of the contemptible creatures depraved 
enough to commit heinous injustice in the 
name of the law, but I never expected much 
better from Dutch judges, as long as in the 
service of the House of Nassau ; — it was my 
unexpected betrayal by Bolt which plunged 
me into despair. The fibres of my energy, 



ITS PRESS, KOTOS, AND PRISONS. 261 

however, recovered at once their strength. 
I clearly saw that I was in a very critical 
position, and that I should require all my 
prudence and presence of mind to escape the 
snares which were artfully set about for me. 
The king, Yan Eappard, Van Hall, were, 
every one, intent upon my perdition. Shortly 
after I had left the Hague there appeared an 
advertisement in the HaarUmsche Convent, 
to the purport that a certain onverlaat (a very 
wicked person) had seduced a lady of highly 
respectable connexions, and that a suitable 
gentleman who was willing to marry her 
would receive a liberal dowry, and the 
appointment to a superior rank in the East 
Indian possessions of the kingdom. That 
seduced lady, I ascertained, was Cornelia 
Vogel. 

I formed all my plans of escaping from my 
perilous situation on the knowledge I had 
of Yan Hall's character. I had studied that 
man, and although he was for some years 
my bitterest enemy, and never my friend 
or protector, truth compels me to confess 
that he had neither the effrontery of an 



262 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

unpolished upstart — as I hare already stated 
— nor the effeminate servility and entire want 
of real self-esteem of common courtiers. Con- 
vinced, on the one hand, that he was cog- 
nizant of the scandalous scheme, and, on 
the other, aware that he would repudiate 
the idea of his name being mixed up with 
this disgraceful affair, I immediately wrote 
a letter to my friend in the Hague, in which 
I made it appear as if I had been informed 
by another party of all the transaction, and 
requested him in a separate note to cause 
that letter to be put on Yan Hall's desk, 
before the settlement at the house of Jan 
Wap should take place. 

I then left my lodgings to obey the sum- 
mons that called me before the judge of 
interrogation; and I must here relate another 
of the thousand base means by which some 
of the worthless governments on the con- 
tinent attempt to overawe the tyrant-ridden 
population. A judge of investigation has a 
particular room for hearing witnesses and sum- 
moned persons, in the common edifice of the 
public sittings of the District Tribunals, and 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 263 



another in every gaol for cletentive prisoners. 
The latter room was allowed him, with the 
alleged intention that the apprehended per- 
sons, kept in custody on suspicion, should 
not be openly brought through the streets, 
and on their way to the Tribunal be ex- 
posed to the public view, every time the 
regter-commissaris wanted to interrogate them. 
Such was the alleged intention ; the prac- 
tical use that is made of these differences 
in the rooms is in accordance with the 
difference in the summoned parties. It 
does not matter, however, whether they 
appear merely as witne-ses, or as the prin- 
cipal- — whether they belong to the male 
or female sex ; nor is the nervousness of 
their system at all considered. The idea 
of a prison is, on the continent, infinitely 
more horrid and dismal than in England. 
There it means rather a standing threat of 
terror and despotism, an abode of dreadful 
wretchedness and despairing misery, than 
a place of reclusion for criminals and rogues. 
And many an unpleasant thought and hour 
of unhappy feelings brings a summons in 



264 HOLLAXD I ITS INSTITUTIONS \ 



timid persons calling them, be it even as 
witnesses, to the judge's gloomy room in the 
prison. All individuals belonging to fami- 
lies having for the head or near relation 
a free-thinking man with an unshackled 
tongue, are summoned to make their appear- 
ance at the dreary gaol ; and the friend of 
the judge, or the submissive dotard, or the 
faithful tax-paying subject, is invited to 
the judge's airy and pleasant room in the 
palace of justice. Nevertheless, these conti- 
nental countries have, in their constitutions, 
very conspicuously stated that all persons are 
equal in the eye of the law. 

I presented myself, at the hour named, at 
the dreary gates of the Amsterdam prison 
on the Heilige Weg (the Holy Eoad), and 
was ushered into the common room of the 
turnkeys, a sort of receptacle for all new 
comers, frightfully adorned with keys, hand- 
cuffs, iron bracelets, chains, and several in- 
struments for securing the neck, the arms, 
and legs of human bodies. The poignant 
recollections of my sufferings in the cellar 
at Groningen gradually stole upon me. I 



ITS PRESS, KIXGS, AND PMSONS. 2G5 

sat down, speechless, and fancied myself in 
prison again. I have nothing of supersti- 
tion about me, but true it is that a sort 
of prescience or presentiment suddenly seem- 
ed to warn me that I should enter that 
prison on another occasion, not as now with 
leave to quit it, but as a captive.* I had 
been sitting in that dreary room for up- 
wards of an hour when it pleased the judi- 
ciary automaton to call me into his un- 
promising-looking apartment. Indignation 
with the Machiavelism which caused me to 
be there, succeeded the torpitude into which 
my mental wanderings had wrapped me. 
Recovering, however, all my self-possession, 
I met my inquisitor with apparent indiffer- 
ence and stoicism. After the most evasive 
answers to the usual questions about the 
purport and intention of the criminated ar- 
ticles, his clerk put down, at my dictation, 

* Three years afterwards I was actually taken into 
the same room, more dead than alive, with chains and 
handcuffs compressiDg my pulses, my hands and fingers 
Fearfully swollen, and a mixture of thin blood and forced 
pe; spiration dropping from under my nails. 



266 Holland : its institutions; 

that I knew all that was going on with 
regard to the OnafhanJcelyTce ; that I should 
be degrading myself by longer allowing my 
name to be mixed up with that of a pub- 
lisher who had been base enough to make 
bargains, as Bolt had done, and that I 
would, if the minister, Van Hall, would re 
tract his order for prosecuting and harassing 
me, pledge my word not to write for the 
Onafhankelyke, or any other of the perfidious 
prints. I further suggested that his Ex- 
cellency could, after this assurance having 
been given, save the king the expenses, and, 
what was of more consequence, himself the 
obliqueness of the mean transaction. The 
judge lost no time in transmitting my decla- 
ration to the Hague, and my friend, who 
was only too happy to see treachery disap- 
pointed, wrote me two days afterwards that 
Bolt had presented himself, exactly at 
twelve o'clock on the appointed day, at 
the house of Jan Wap, where the bank 
notes were actually lying to recompense him 
for the betrayal, but where a few hours be- 
fore an order to a somewhat contrary effect 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PEISONS. 267 

had arrived. Bolt was received at the door 
and — discarded ! As for the indictments 
against the four editions of the paper, I 
never heard anything more of them. What 
a country to live in, it must be, where the 
laws slumber upon the robes of the authori- 
ties, and where such compromises can be 
made ! 

My correspondent in the Hague, who had 
proved to be my friend, was not a man 
of high social standing. His name was Jan 
Otten, and he was the proprietor of a re- 
spectable Koffyhuis, called the Hof van Ber- 
lyn. He was also an under-adjutant in the 
civic guard, and enjoyed the confidence of 
his commanding officer, who was an habitue 
at the palace of Willem II. From that 
officer, as well as from the employes who 
frequented his house, he knew how to 
squeeze out the information he required. 
To be acquainted with the daily occurrences 
and incidents in the palace, and in com- 
pany he never was allowed to enjoy or dis- 
like, constituted the empty glory of that 
good-natured man, so much so that he some- 



268 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



times neglected the affairs of his calling, 
and should have served his customers with 
a glass of gin when he was in search of an 
aristocratic gossip, or endeavouring to un- 
ravel some mystery of the Court. He was 
proud that the attempt to ensnare me had 
failed, and quite delighted at the termina- 
tion of Bolt's nefarious machinations. Nor 
could he forget that he had been the means 
of preventing the expected conclusion of 
the perfidy which, in the beginning, threat- 
ened to be of the most serious consequences 
to my safety. In his expansion of joy and 
friendship he entreated me to return to the 
Hague, and in the most emphatic manner 
assured me that he should not give himself 
any rest until he saw me " happy." 

After all that had transpired, and anxious 
to avoid meeting Bolt, I thought it advi- 
sable to leave Amsterdam, and, accepting 
the invitation of my friend Otten, I went 
back to the Hague. But I refused to make 
any personal effort to produce a better un- 
derstanding with the persons I formerly had 
to deal with, and lived retired, devoting the 



ITS PRESS, KIXGS, AND PRISONS. 269 

greater port of my time to study and the 
writing of articles for a few periodicals, and 
quietly awaiting the events. After all that 
Otten had told me, I had at least expected 
that the government of Willem II. would 
have offered me, of their own accord, some 
honourable employment. But I waited in 
vain, and was very soon tired of living in 
wearisome suspense. 

In the latter part of 1S43 I resolved to 
return to Paris, and to reside there or to 
go farther to Madrid. Consequently I 
wanted a passport. Had I been on good 
terms with the government I should have 
had nothing to do for its obtainment but 
verbally to apply to the Minister for Foreign 
Affairs. Abominable is that system, con- 
ceived in the shallow brains of cowardlv 
tyranny, that takes a description of travel- 
ling men, as if they were col is or animals, 
and throws them into a horrid prison if not 
provided with an official testimonial of their 
identity. But the climax of abomination in 
this case lies in the application. Conti- 
nental subjects, not in good odour with 



270 HOLLAND I ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



their paternal government, have much to do 
before they can become possessed of such a 
precious document. I was told that no pass- 
port would be given me unless I had a cer- 
tificate from the principal commissary of 
police in the Hague, stating that I was a 
quietly conducted and good citizen. I had 
never been in conversation with that honour- 
able authority, and did not know him, but 
as I shall have to speak of him on more 
than one occasion hereafter, I had better at 
once say that his name was Waldeck — a 
man of notorious significance in the Hague. 
He received me with awkward civility, and 
was evidently acquainted with the reason 
of my visit. On asking him for the re- 
quired certificate, he gave me to understand 
that as he had not the pleasure of know- 
ing me, I was required to bring him a de- 
claration of two of the most respectable 
persons of the division of the Hague in 
which I had been residing for the longest 
period, and in which declaration there was 
to be a statement that I was really and 
positively a well-conducted and quiet citizen. 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 271 



and that, moreover, that declaration was to 
be confirmed by the Wyk-meester (civil super- 
intendent of the division), where those two 
persons were residing. I brought him that 
paper the next morning. After having perused 
it the sbire exclaimed in a fit of astonishment 
that he did not understand how it w r as pos- 
sible that those men could thus testify in 
my favour, and taking a large book out of 
a cupboard and opening it with the self- 
complacency and pride of an important blind 
instrument of despotism, allowed me a glance 
in it, which showed me how, from the very 
first day of my arrival in the Hague, my 
name had been inscribed in his Zwarte Bock 
— Black Book — and all my doings (accord- 
ing to the mendacious reports of his spies) 
had been, day by day, recorded. " The 
gentlemen," he added, " who delivered to 
you this declaration do not know you; but 
I must tell you now that I know you, and 
that I refuse to grant your application." 

I therefore went to the house of the 
famous D'Eagelbronner, and had a private 
interview with him. There was nothing 



272 HOLLAND : ITS IXSTITTTIOXS ' 



about that man but apparent simplicity, 
innocence, bashfulness, and piety, and it 
required a physiognomist of no common 
experience to discover in his deep lying eye 
the indication of hypocrisy and perversion. 
His looks were not straightforward enough to 
meet the beams of other human beings, they 
were first cast to the ground, and gradually 
rose to intercept those of his interlocutor. 
Although not fully forty years of age, many 
wrinkles divided his tawnv forehead into 
horizontal sections, extending nearly to its 
bald top. He was seemingly very open- 
hearted, and related to me some episodes 
of his life. Once he had experienced a time 
when he had seldom any other food but bread 
and water, that he was penniless, and with 
starvation staring him in the face. But 
then when once a friendly hand had given him 
a lift he had fortified himself in bis position, 
and from thence he had risen, by assiduity 
and perseverance, to the highest step on the 
ladder on which he now stood. Never would 
he advise young men to throw away their 
positions in life, and he assured me that if 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AXD PRISONS. 273 

I would promise him to abstain from 
political and plebeian society, lie would 
cause my re-instalment to former favours. 
I declined these honours, and told him that 
I only wanted a passport. He was sorry to 
find me obstinate, but would oblige me with 
it if I would confidently tell him what 
business I had in Paris or Madrid. And I 
did tell him, confidently, and with all the 
veracity I was able to impart, that it was 
to look for a place as corresponding clerk 
in a merchant's office, which, of course, I 
could not accept in my own country. The 
next day I received my passport at the 
Ministry for Foreign Affairs — uveitis. I 
immediately left for Paris, with the intention 
of communicating all that had occurred to 
General Fagel, and temporarily to enter the 
office of a Parisian or Madrid paper as 
translator from foreign journals. 

I had onlv taken a few days* rest and 
amusement in Paris when I was informed by 
a friend in the Ha sue that Willem I. had 
died suddenly at Berlin, as previously men- 
tioned. The newspapers confirmed the 



274 HOLLAND I ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

tidings, and the further particulars I received 
penetrated me with indignation, and caused 
me to regret that I was not again at the 
head of a newspaper in Holland. It had 
during the last two years been freely circu- 
lated and believed in Holland that the old 
king in his last will and testament would 
bequeath some forty or fifty millions of 
guilders to the public treasure, and thus 
expiate for the defalcations during his life, 
by a tardy reparation and generosity at his 
death. This rumour had considerably 
abated the fierce animosity against the royal 
impostor. Every care and even fraudulent 
means were adopted to conceal the approxi- 
mate figure of the amount of the immense 
fortune he had been hoarding up during his 
calamitous reign, but conscientious persons 
have calculated and believed that it was 
about two hundred and forty millions of 
guilders, or twelve millions sterling! To 
amass that colossal wealth even the 
necessitous and the destitute had been 
compelled to contribute their mite, which 



ITS PRESS, KUTGSj AND PRISONS. 275 

was greedily swallowed up by that finan- 
cial shark, who took, in the shape of 
money, all that came within his reach. From 
thousands, nay, from millions of different 
sources, had that amassment of wealth 
grown to the magnitude it was at his 
demise. And if around the arm chair 
containing the fat corpse now for ever 
doomed to obmute silence, a circle could 
have been formed of all his ill-gotten piles 
of currency, it would scarcely have afforded 
sufficient room to contain the number of 
emaciated men, widows, and orphans who 
had been subjected to his exactions, and had 
paid a higher price for their scanty neces- 
saries, in order to swell the collection of his 
possessions. 

But neither the public treasure which he 
had robbed, nor the poor and destitute whom 
he had bereaved, were mentioned in the will 
of the departed tyrant. A few thousand 
guilders were bestowed upon religious insti- 
tutions and some of his servants, and s the 
bulk of the spoil was divided between two 

2 T 



276 HOLLAND! ITS IXSTITTJTIONS ; 

males — a spendthrift and a miser, and two 
lustful females, now both changed by the hand 
of Time into harridans. The two males were 
his sons, King "Willem II. and Prince 
Frederick. The first spent his share as we 
have before seen ; and Prince Frederick, a 
regular man, but nearly as covetous as his 
father, carefully hoarded up his part, and 
even augmented it, in order that his two 
daughters should have a better dowry, and, 
consequently, foreign princes of some im- 
portance for husbands. The two females 
were Princess Marianne and the Countess 
Henriette D'Oultremont, the widow of the 
deceased. The first went travelling on a 
more splendid scale than before, as soon as 
she had pocketed her portion, and threw 
away millions in Italy, Egypt, and Pales- 
tine, in which latter country she visited 
Jerusalem and the tomb of Jesus Christ, 
with Yan Eossem on her arm. Henriette 
D'Oultremont took refuge in a magnificent 
castle near Aix-la-Chapelle (Achen), and 
with her portion led a rakish life in that 
quiet corner of Prussia. 



ITS PRESS, EDsGS, AXD PRISOXS. 277 



Nearly all that "Willem I. plundered from 
the inhabitants in North and South Nether- 
land was, and is still, spent and lavished in 
foreign countries. 



278 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 



CHAPTEE XIV. 

Baron Fagel again — I publish a Republican Paper in 
the Hague, called The Ooyevaar — My Correspondents 
— -Extensive Circulation — Prosecution — The Horrid 
Secret between Petrus Jansen and Willem II. for 
six months silenced with 15,000 Guilders — The 
Contra Ooyevaar — Tetroode and the Ooyemoer — De 
Haas — Yan Gorcum. 

General Fagel, whom I had seen in the 
latter end of September, 1843, appeared to 
have received very unfavourable reports 
regarding my behaviour, and my attempts to 
induce him to judge impartially between 
Willem II. and his confidants, and me, 
failed altogether. He was evidently less a 
representative of his own feelings than of 
those of the government he served. Secre- 
tary Guericke had ascended in the ambassa- 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 279 

dor's favour, and was so bloated with diplo- 
matic pride that he treated me cavalierly. 
With regard to my connection with the Pari- 
sian press, I did not find matters as I had 
expected, and the reflections and consider- 
ations which the death of "Willem I., and 
other circumstances created within me, 
altered my intention of remaining at Paris, 
or of going to Madrid, and I requested 
Guericke to put a visa on my passport for 
London. I knew very well that I should 
not require that brevet of thraldom in free 
England ; but it was required for my leav- 
ing France, where generally a stranger is not 
allowed to take passage on board foreign- 
bound steamers unless provided with that 
testimonial. The secretary wrote a few 
lines about my application to Fagel, who was 
in his own apartments, and the latter sent 
his lackey — a new servant who was not 
yet diplomatised — with the verbal reply, 
delivered in my presence, that the desired 
visa could be put upon my passport, but 
that, at the same time, a letter was to be 
written to Van Eappard, informing him that 



280 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

I had changed my plan de voyage. I thus 
accidentally learned that even in a foreign 
country my movements would be subjected 
to official observation and correspondence, 
and this caused me finally to decide on 
returning to Holland, and to try whether I 
could not, in spite of all the machinations and 
contrivances of my enemies and opponents, 
put a republican paper on foot in the very 
place of abode of royalty. 

Three months afterwards I was again in 
Holland, after having performed a pedestrian 
tour through France and Belgium. During 
the time I was dependent upon the favour 
of Willem II. I had not made the acquaint- 
ance of any publisher of that town, with 
the exception of J. Van ? t Haaff, who printed 
my work about the oculist Kremer, and the 
correspondent of the Amsterdam publishers, 
Hendrik Frylink, to whose valuable perio- 
dical, called Het Leeshabinetj I was for a 
short time the chief contributor, and both 
these persons were of opinion that no pub- 
lisher in the Hague dared to risk the pro- 
duction of an anti-government newspaper. 



ITS PRESS, KINGS; AND PRISONS. 281 

I found, however, what I desired. In a 
small, long passage in the centre of the Hague, 
lived an old man with silver hairs, a middle- 
aged wife, and fourteen children, nearly 
all daughters, and he was a printer and 
publisher, although on a very small scale. 
The large family was chiefly dependent 
upon the one press Dum.ee, as he was 
called, possessed, but that one press was a 
good one, and he had, moreover, sufficient 
available type to print a weekly newspaper. 
It was about this time that a certain John 
Eonge, an excommunicated Silesian priest, 
published his brochures regarding popery 
and true religion, as he understood it, and 
which caused a great rumour and excite- 
ment among continental Christians. I trans- 
lated these little books for Dumee, and the 
sale was very profitable to him. He and 
his wife were of opinion that if I would con- 
stantly supply them with manuscript they 
would fare much better than they had before 
done, even if they should lose, as was to be 
expected, their customers who were con- 
nected with the Government. To make more 



282 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

sure of my position, and to prevent a re- 
currence of what I had experienced with 
Bolt, I behaved as if I intended to become a 
member of the numerous family. I was 
respected as a guest, and treated as a friend, 
and they soon felt that their interest had 
become interwoven with my views. 

Having that press at my disposal, I made 
arrangements to have my reporters in the 
palaces of the king, the Prince of Orange, 
and Prince Frederick, and among the en- 
tourage of Princess Marianne, Without 
much difficulty I found some of the servants 
of these personages willing to report any- 
thing of consequence to me. Persons in the 
service of tyrants are glad of loosening now 
and then the strings of their secrets and 
griefs in the bosom of trustworthy persons. 
It is very rare that imintended attachment 
and real love bind a slave to his master. A 
tyrant has no friends, and it is only the 
money, the providing the means of material 
existence, adequate to their assumed per- 
sonal situation in social life, that makes his 
favourites cling to him. As soon as the idea 



ITS PRESS, KDs T GS, AND PRISONS. 283 

springs up in a person that he, though a 
servant, is as well and as good a human 
being as the creature whose words to him 
are law, the ties of blind abnegation of 
his own existence in favour of the man who 
is his superior according to social conven- 
tions only, are irremediably broken. I was 
friendly with my secret correspondents in the 
palaces, but paid them nothing ; in fact they 
refused to accept any money, and formed 
in that respect a striking contrast to the 
hirelings of despotism. "Why did I make 
these arrangements, deeply averse as I was 
to all espionage? Principally out of a spirit of 
revenge. My actions in private life had been 
reported, for the greater part falsely and 
calumniously, and I certainly did not return 
too much by delivering the denunciations of 
the secrets and whereabouts of such lofty 
individuals for the edification of the public. 

The arms of the royal town of the Hague 
consist of two animals, a bird, and a reptile. 
The bird is the reverend stork, represented 
usually with one of its legs in an onward 
and elevated direction ; the poor reptile is a 



28-4 HOLLAND I ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

meagre snake, twisting its writhing limbs 
into its destroyer's beak. Tlie stork, in Hol- 
land, goes by the more sonorous name of 
Ooyevaar, and that was the name I gave to 
my small hebdomadal paper. I had a 
vignette placed at the head of it, represent- 
ing the feathered biped ; but instead of a 
miserably -looking snake, it had rolls of 
paper in its beak, on which were litho- 
graphed the words grondwet and helasting 
(constitution and taxes), and another paper 
under its foot on which was the word 
mdnsterwet (monster law). This latter 
alluded to a law which Yan Hall had passed 
under the name of the law of the gratuitous 
loan, and which tended to make the good 
Dutch people pay for the tremendous deficit 
in the balance of the exchequer plundered 
by the late WiHem I. The monstericet was 
already execrated by the nation ; the consti- 
tution and the law taxes were in fair 
progress of being so at a future period, which 
I intended to shorten as much as possible. 

It was in the autumn of 1844 that the 
republican Ooyevaar made its first appear- 



ITS PKESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 285 

ance, and startled the creatures of the 
Government, who could scarcely believe that 
any person could be so audacious as to 
publish such a paper under the very nose of 
the king. The most cunning members of 
the secret police were sent about to depreci- 
ate and to speak slanderously of the libellous 
print, as they called it ; but as I had 
intimated to my readers beforehand that 
such was likely to happen, the intended 
effect of their underhand dealings was lost. 
In the beginning the Ooyevaar was clandes- 
tinely read, and in private circles, but only 
a few weeks elapsed before it was admitted 
into all the koffyhuizen. I had no sub- 
editor or contributors at the commencement ; 
but as soon as the paper acquired some 
notoriety, I received numerous contributed 
articles. Some persons of high stand- 
ing or in the service of the Government, 
who, quite in harmony with the character of 
the Hague, feared that their letters would 
be opened and read at the post-office, 
indirectly requested me to pay them a visit, 
when they would put me in possession of 



286 HOLLAND ; ITS 1XSTITTJTI0XS ; 



information, the publication of "which gene- 
rally would tend to throw blame on the Govern- 
ment, or to bring the dynasty into disrepute. 
I will not betray the persons who thus put 
trust in me, but I may as well make a single 
exception regarding a political renegade, and 
say that one of these was the little lawyer 
Dirk Donker Curtius, who will hereafter 
appear as his Excellency the Minister of 
Justice in Holland. 

The day of publication of the Ooyevaar 
was Saturday. The ~koffijliuizen were 
crowded with people at the hour that the 
delivery took place. It was also anxiously 
expected at the king's table, and in the 
dwellings of the highest personages, who 
were bewildered at my revelations, which 
could only proceed from persons intimately 
acquainted with the palaces. More than 
once I related, in a manner fully compre- 
hensible to them, what they had spoken and 
done on certain occasions, when they firinly 
believed themselves to be in circles exclu- 
sively devoted to their interests. One of 
the members of the Orange-Xassaus be- 



ITS PRESS ? KINGS, AND PRISONS. 287 



came afraid of paying his nocturnal visits 
in the attire of a common Chilian, and se- 
cretly provided himself with the garb of 
an insignificant-looking journeyman, and 
with false whiskers, only to throw them 
aside with curses, when the Saturdav ar- 
rived, and he discovered that his secret was 
no secret at all. Distrust and uncomfort- 
able feelings began to pervade the royal 
circles, and the apprehensions of insecurity 
banished from them that easiness without 
which no enjoyment is possible. 

Only a small portion of my paper, how- 
ever, was taken up by that sort of chronique 
scandaleuse, and the principal part of it was 
devoted to the discussion of political affairs 
and topics of general or local interest. Its 
whole tendency was purely republican, but 
all my articles, whether treating on general 
or individual matters, were couched in such 
terms, and, where required, surrounded by 
so many negative expressions, as my pre- 
caution, guided by my experience and an 
improved tactic of fettered journalism sug- 
gested, But, notwithstanding all my pre- 



288 HOLLAND ! ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



cautions, the arrondissements regtbank in the 
Hague, a few months after the Ooyevaar 
made its appearance, commenced the usual 
game of quenching political vitality, and 
prosecutions were instituted against me by 
the customary accusation of libel. The 
quasi-slandered person in this case was a 
gamekeeper of the king, called in that 
country pluimgraaf, which means " Count of 
the Feather," a name perhaps invented by 
the illustrious ancestors of the roval family. 
Two respectable persons, the one called 
Tuyt, an inhabitant of Scheveningen, and 
the other called Staal, living in the Hague, 
had sent me for insertion in my paper an 
article signed by both, in which they gave 
it as their opinion that the plmmgraaf had 
committed perjury, inasmuch as, having been 
duly sworn, he declared before the judge in 
the Has;ue that he had noticed those two 
persons strolling about the king's grounds 
without, however, seeing whether they car- 
ried a gun, while afterwards he swore to the 
contrary, and pertinaciously stated that they 
had a gun, in consequence of which they 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 289 

were sentenced to pay a fine of forty guil- 
ders, or the alternative of going to prison 
for six months. I inserted that article with 
their signatures, appended to which were a 
few remarks of my own, in which I care- 
fully avoided committing myself to the 
pluimgraaf. The District Court of the 
Hague was not very particular in respect 
of prosecuting the real authors of the arti- 
cle, and, as I was at all events the editor, 
it liberally adjudged me six months' impri- 
sonment, to pay a fine of a thousand guil- 
ders, to ten years' interdiction of civil 
rights, and other niceties, which condem- 
nation, however, was set aside on appealing 
to the higher authority of the Provincial 
Court of South Holland. 

About the same time that Staal and 
Tuyt were fined for poaching, a woman, re- 
siding in the Hague, and going by the 
name of Emma, was condemned for abetting 
prostitution and debauching young girls. 
This had been her regular business for more 
than ten years, but as her house was fre- 
quented by royal scions and persons of high 

u 



290 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ) 

rank, no notice was taken of it, until an 
unhappy father, whose young daughter had 
been delivered up to bloated voluptuousness, 
repeatedly complained, and Emma was at 
last sentenced to six months' imprisonment, 
the minimum sentence allowed by the law in 
such cases. 

But she never went to prison, although 
her sentence was confirmed on an appeal 
being made to the High Council of the 
Netherlands. The affair was hushed up ; 
the royal clemency made use of its prero- 
gative ; and Emma received a full pardon. 
Although I did not mention a word of this 
clandestine transaction, I was perfectly aware 
of what was going on ; and I put this case 
before the public, as soon as the two men, 
sentenced on very doubtful testimony for 
poaching on the king's grounds, had re- 
ceived a negative reply on their appeal for 
remission of punishment, in order to make 
a contrast so striking that it needs must 
rouse the indignation of every heart con- 
taining the slightest feeling of delicacy and 
honour. In this instance the inhabitants of 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 291 

the Hague threw off their peculiar etiquette, 
and loudly cried for very shame ; but the 
high-minded men of the Government would 
not show any appearance of submitting to 
justice and reason. Tuyt and Staal were 
sent to prison and locked up with malefac- 
tors, and were not liberated until they had 
paid the fine. 

My journal had not been more than two 
months in existence, when the unfortunate 
Marquis de Thouars, to whom the reader 
has been introduced in preceding pages, sent 
his footman, who was at the same time 
his confidant, with some literary contri- 
butions for my paper. He placed himself 
openly and unreservedly on my side, and 
the fact of such an occurrence by an ex-page 
of Willem L, and moreover a distant re- 
lation of the reigning monarch, caused a 
new sensation of unpleasantness at court. 
Two young men, Yan Gorcum and De Haas, 
also offered their services to me, and they, 
too, had their articles produced with their 
names appended. Both were possessed of 
talent and fair judgment, and could have 



292 Holland : its institutions ; 

procured for themselves a high reputation 
where liberty and literature were estimated, 
and where authors reaped a sufficient reward 
for their intellectual labours, so as not to be 
obliged to depend upon subsidiary means of 
existence. Yan Gorcum did not long con- 
tinue a contributor to the Ooyevaar. He 
once came to me and told a moving tale of 
the straitened circumstances of his aged 
mother, and of his own penury, and en- 
treated me to point out to him the way to 
get possession of more money than I was 
able to give him. I told him that I knew 
of no plan by which he could succeed in 
obtaining the object he had in view, unless 
it was by relinquishing his name and posi- 
tion as a journalist of the opposition, and to 
apply to Van Eappard. He so strongly 
assured me that only the most serious 
circumstances could drive him to such a 
step, and that he would never cease to be a 
republican, that I communicated to him 
some quasi secrets ; by revealing which I 
told him that, by speaking of me in 
derogatory terms to the director of the 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AXD PEISOXS. 293 

king's cabinet, I had not the slightest doubt 
of his being handsomely compensated. He 
did so, and actually received at once a 
thousand guilders as a gratuity, on con- 
dition that he was not to see me again, and 
to leave the country, which he did without 
even bidding me adieu. 

The weather was very severe in the first 
month of the year 1845, and continued 
excessively cold during the latter part of the 
lengthened winter. On one of those stormy, 
hazy, snowy, and unpleasant days — it was a 
Friday, and I believe the 19th of March — I 
was busily engaged in writing, and had all 
my attention absorbed in the subject of my 
demonstrations, when, noiselessly and unex- 
pectedly, there appeared before me an emaci- 
ated and ghastly-looking person, staring 
around him with deep-sunk eyes, who asked 
me, in a low, grating voice, whether he 
was alone with me, or if there was anybody 
concealed in the room. Turning from the close 
attention I was paying to the composition 
upon which I was engaged, I doubted for a 
moment whether I was not labouring under 



294 HOLLAND ! ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

some hallucination — but no; although he 
had made his appearance as a phantom, he 
stood there, the man in reality. His dress 
was in conformity with his personal appear- 
ance, for, although he was shivering with 
cold, he was attired in summer garments, 
which bore evident witness of long service. 
This tatterdemalion had a voluminous 
bundle of papers under his arm, which he 
deposited upon my writing-table, at the 
same time keeping his hand upon it. My 
astonishment was not abated when I heard 
him say that his name was Peter Jansen, 
and that there were only two persons who 
could save him from destruction — those two 
being Dirk Donker Curtius and myself. It 
was the first time that I had knowingly seen 
this strange individual, and the information 
I had formerly received about his equivocal 
connection with the king, and the enormous 
amounts of money which had been presented 
to him by the debased monarch, induced me 
to believe that, if ever my eyes rested on 
Peter Jansen, I should certainly see him 
clad in the choicest finery, covered with 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 295 

golden rings, eye-glass, chain, watch, and 
whatever other articles generally belong to 
the exhibitions of such sort of people. If 
I do not render the exact account, and the 
bearing and meaning of all the words and 
explications I heard from the month of that 
wretch, it is becanse I am afraid that the 
minuteness with which I should like to 
render the truth might intrude too much 
upon common decency. On observing to 
him that it was quite impolite to enter my 
apartment uninvited, and stealthfully as he 
had done, he knelt down at my feet, and in 
a sorrowful tone exclaimed that he had made 
up his mind to see me in whatever manner 
he could, and that, not finding my old ser- 
vant, Sypkes, in the passage, he had uncere- 
moniously proceeded to my room. "I am 
nearly starved," said he, "and so are my 
wife and child. Secrets of great importance 
exist between "Willem II. and myself, and 
common sense ought to tell him not to leave 
me destitute as I am ; but he has withdrawn 
his hand from me, and — but pray look into 
these papers, they will tell you everything. 



296 HOLLAKD : ITS INSTITUTIONS ) 

Do look at them ; nobody has yet seen nem 
but Donker Curtius, and he does not seem 
willing to save me." 

I took the papers in my hand as I would 
have touched a venomous toad, and after 
having thrown a desultory glance at his 
financial projects, and the notes which had 
reference to his private concerns with Willem 
II.,* I ordered him to stand up and swear 
to tell me the truth. " After Cats and I," 
he continued, "had presented some schemes 
for saving the country from bankruptcy, I 
one day accidentally met the king, walking 
alone in the jSachtegaalspad, close to the 
garden of his palace, when he asked me 
whether I was the same person who had 
sent plans of financial reform to him. On 
my replying in the affirmative, he desired 

^ Two years or more afterwards, Joseph Dames, pro- 
prietor of the hoffyhuis called the Gouden Kroon, on 
the Dagelyksche Groenmarket, in the Hague, had some 
of these notes, or copies, in his possession, in one of 
which, according to what Dames told to all his friends, 
"Willem II. affirmed that he loved Peter Jansen " better 
than the finest woman in his kingdom." 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 297 

me to see him the next morning at half-past 
eleven ; and delighted at such an invitation, 
and being, moreover, rather in want of 
money, I did not fail to present myself at 
the royal palace exactly at the appointed 
time. I was ushered into the receiving- 
room facing the Kneuterdyk, and after some 
preliminary common talk, he gently took 
my hand and pressed it with such a strange 
sort of trembling nervousness, which ap- 
peared as if I was holding the hand of a 
loving, lustful woman : i Listen, Jansen,' 
said the king ; ' I feel confident that you 
are a clever and a good man, and I like you 
very much and, drawing me nearer to him, 
he gave me a kiss, and whispered : 6 Believe 
me, Jansen, I can make a statesman of you, 
and a great man too ; and, see here, Jansen, 
I shall give you an order on your breast' — 
(he now pressed me to his heart and kissed 
me more fondly than before) — 6 and, if you 
like it' — (and here he was, while breathing 
heavily, unfastening the order he wore on 
his own breast) — £ you can have this ; only 



298 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 

come, dear Jansen — come, do as I wish.' 
Saying these words, lie put his hand forward, 
and" 

w Begone !" said I. " Never have the 
temerity again to cross my threshold." But 
folding his hands, and assuming a praying 
attitude, he continued: — "I am guiltless; 
I did not fall ; the attempt was made, but 
I resisted ; that is all. I swear that I am 
innocent of the crime. Help me, assist me ; 
I am a lost man if you will not do it, and 
you can do it in a minute. A few lines of 
your handwriting only will save me." 

He then took from his pocket a letter, 
addressed to his Majesty Willem II., to 
the effect that, as he had so many times 
applied to him without receiving an answer, 
he now, for the last time, wrote this letter, 
with an intimation that if, on presenting 
himself at the king's palace on the following 
Monday, he did not, before twelve o'clock on 
that day, receive a sum of fifteen thousand 
guilders, he intended, without delay, pub- 
licly to make known all that had passed 
between them. Under this he requested me 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 299 

only to add, that I would comply with his 
wishes regarding the publication. I be- 
lieved, at that moment, in the man's state- 
ments ; and looking at his features and 
appearance, so manifestly speaking of his 
dejectedness and misery, I took compassion 
upon him, and taking the letter from his 
hands, I wrote under Hansen's signature as 
follows : — " Unless the victim of royal heart- 
lessness be assisted, I shall at once give 
publicity to the affair. — E. Meeter." 

Peter Jansen had his apartments in the 
house at the corner of the Boschkant and 
Heeregracht, Westside, and in the same house 
lived a person of the name of Gerritsen, 
who was my occasional reporter, and on 
whose faithfulness I could depend. I never 
saw him in his own house, and was not 
aware that both parties resided on the same 
premises. On the following day — Saturday 
evening — he told me that great joy had 
been caused at his dwelling by a message 
having been received by Peter Jansen, re- 
questing him to go to the king's palace the 
next Monday morning, at eleven o'clock. 



300 HOLLAND I ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 

He described to me the position in which 
J ansen was, and had been for many weeks, 
as destitute in the extreme — the last article 
they possessed haying been taken to the 
pawn-shop. He informed me at the same 
time that Jansen was married to an ex- 
maitresse of a member of the First Chamber 
of the Staten-General, by whom she had a 
child, and that Jansen had dissipated the 
fortune she once possessed. The next Mon- 
day he watched J ansen, and saw him enter 
the palace, and leave it soon afterwards, 
running towards his lodgings. 

He had received the money. The princi- 
pal articles pawned were at once redeemed, 
and at two o'clock a vehicle was standing at 
the door, with the son of Jansen' s wife 
behind it, acting as lacquey, and Mr. and 
Madame Jansen left for Germany, via Eot- 
terdam. My misplaced commiseration had 
saved that man from the very brink of beg- 
gary and vagrancy ; but he never so much 
as thanked me for the services I had ren- 
dered him. I saw him, however, afterwards 
— about 150 days from the above circum- 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AXD PRISONS. 301 



stance — and the fifteen thousand guilders 
were gone. It had taken him less than half 
a year to spend that money. The villain 
had the impudence to accost me in one of 
the kofiiihuizen I nightly frequented, and 
the manner in which he expressed himself 
raised my anger to such a degree that, had 
I not been providentially prevented from 
doing so, I should have pierced him. The 
point of my svrord, which, concealed in a 
strong cane, was my constant companion, 
had nearlv reached his breast, when my 
friend, Yan Saazen,* threw himself on my 
arm, exactly in time to save me from sealing 
my fate in the blood of a worthless mis- 
creant. The non-satisfaction of my anger, 
however, was the cause of a serious nervous 
attack, which almost put an end to my life. 
Jansen went about in public places, and to 
the royal theatre, to spend his last few 
guilders, loudly exclaiming that he and 
AVilleni II. were brothers, and more than 

* This noble-minded man was a sworn interpreter at 
the High Conrt of the Netherlands, and afterwards con- 
nected with the Xieuice Rotter 'damsche Courant. 



302 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

that, evidently with the object of extorting, 
this time by such means, new remittances 
from the king. On this occasion the latter 
made another fatal step, by taking into 
his personal confidence the commissary of 
police, "Waldeck, by whose daring tricks 
Jansen, all on a sndden, disappeared. He 
was not murdered, but kidnapped, forced 
into a carriage, and taken to prison in 
another town — Eotterdam — without either 
trial, accusation, or legal instrument whatever. 
The king, of course, had expected that 
proper care would have been taken, in one 
way or the other, of that dangerous fellow 
doing any harm ; it happened, however, that 
the intrigues and selfish speculation of 
"Waldeck caused Willem II. to pay, not 
many months afterwards, a hundred thou- 
sand guilders, attended with circumstances 
which forced the king to restore J ansen to 
libertv. 

The Ooyevaar had existed nearly six 
months when I disagreed with the publisher, 
Dumee, and his family, about some trifling 
matter, and I intentionally commenced pub- 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 303 

listing my paper with another printer, in 
order to give wider extension to the circu- 
lation of liberal ideas. De Haas took the 
editorship of the old Ooyevaar, and I started 
the young one with the publisher Mingelen. 
My friend, De Haas, wrote his paper in 
perfect unison with the tone and tactics I 
had adopted, but he lacked the experience 
to which I owed a higher degree of circum- 
spection and cautiousness, and only a short 
time had elapsed when he was prosecuted 
for the usual libel — for libel against such a 
man as Willem II. The District Tribunal 
of the Hague gladly and unhesitatingly 
sentenced him to two years' imprisonment, 
against which he appealed before the Provin- 
cial Court. 

The accounts or hints about the private 
doings of the royal and other personages, 
published in that part of the Ooyevaar 
which I called ckronique scandaleuse, induced 
the king again to have a secret police of his 
own. It may also have been that he had 
got scent of the manner in which he was 
watched by Van Saazen, and two other 



304 



HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



Mends, and myself, and that fear of per- 
sonal safety contributed to his taking this 
step. Who at first was at the head of this 
personal secret police I am unable to tell, 
but certain it is that WaJdeck had afterwards 
a hand in it. Connected with the police 
was the editor of a vile weekly sheet, 
written in the most coarse language, attack- 
ing all sorts of persons in their private 
affairs and personal doings. His real name 
was Apeker, but as he had formerly been 
convicted of felony, he published his pam- 
phlet with the family name of his wife, 
Yan der Yen. Nobody ever spoke about 
the lampooner but with the greatest con- 
tempt ; yet this Apeker was taken into the 
king's service, and paid for publishing a 
paper which was called the Contra-Oojievaar. 
At the head of that production figured a 
print, representing a large stork, having 
under one of its wings my publisher, Du- 
mee, and under the other my own person. 
We were each in company of and collared 
by a policeman, who appeared to be very 
angry with us. The nauseating trash con- 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PEISOXS. 305 

tained in that paper could do no harm to the 
Ooyecaar, and the private police was in this, 
as in all other respects, nothing but expen- 
sive and worse than useless to Willem II. 

On the other hand, I was attacked by the 
S'Gravenhaagsche Nieuwsbode, generally a 
well-conducted, but an entirely dependent 
paper, in the service of the police. D'Engel- 
bronner was its principal editor, and Behr, 
commissary of police in Scheveningen, the 
sub-editor. The former opened a full volley 
of invectives and calumnies against me in 
one of the best constructed leading articles 
he ever wrote. According to his state- 
ments, I surpassed in duplicity and wicked- 
ness the late Bulbus, as described by Cicero. 
He conjured the public to beware of my 
sly look, as being an index of my pene- 
trating into the secrets of others, which, 
sooner or later, I certainly would bring to 
account. The article was evidently care- 
fully concocted in the pandemonium at the 
ministry of justice; but it had no effect, over- 
reaching, as it did, its mark. 

A third enemy was let loose upon me. This 



306 HOLLAND ! ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



was a bookseller of the name of Antonie Van 
Tetroode, commonly called Toon Tetroode, 
than whom a more perfect parody on a 
respectable man never, very likely, existed. 
Had that creature been living in England, 
he would undoubtedly have gone by the 
name of the little flying Dutchman. Al- 
though nearly fifty years of age, and bandy- 
legged, he jumped and danced about the 
streets of the royal Hague as if he had 
been a saltimbanque, or a clown at Astley's. 
His gait was nothing but a counterfeit of 
his character, remarkable for absolute want 
of steadiness and principle. This miscar- 
riage of human nature was as dirty in his 
behaviour as paltrous of countenance. He 
had been sentenced not less than twenty- 
three or twenty-four times, now for riotous 
conduct or assault, then for abusive lan- 
guage or slander, and then again for fight- 
ing, or spitting in other people's faces. 
This latter disgusting and mean act was 
of frequent occurrence with him, and one 
of his habits. He once publicly spat in 
the face of the governor of the royal 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 307 



library, a most quiet, inoffensive, and 
obliging man ; in fact, he did not care who it 
was he covered with his spawl. But he was 
never harshly dealt with by the judges ; a 
fine of a few guilders or stivers, or three or 
eight days', or, in very rare instances, a 
month's imprisonment, was all that he knew 
beforehand he should receive for his filthy 
and dastardly abominations. 

Such an outcast from respectable society, 
without a grain of shame or scrupulosity 
about him, found favour in the eyes of 
Orange-Nassau. Directly and positively to 
engage such a scrub in the secret police 
was not advisable, for he never could have 
agreed to anything like authority, from 
which he had to receive instructions. But 
he could be useful in the irregular force of 
the police, and it was on this consideration 
that he often received gratuities when he 
had wrought mischief against a foe of the 
government. This same villain had lumi- 
nous intervals, during which he made pas- 
quinades against men of liberal principles, 
and panegyrics in favour of his protector, 



308 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 



Willem II., or any one of the Nassau family 
who was likely to pay him for his trouble. 
He had even times when he would patch 
together a seemingly good yerse;* and as 
the productions of his giddy-brained muse 
were of course dedicated to his royal sup- 
porters, I baptized him in my paper the 
hof troubadour, or the troubadour of the court 
of his Majesty Willem II. As I generally 
knew when and for what motives he had 
received a gift from the royal personages, 
and more than once alluded to such dis- 



* He made some poetry in French, addressed to 
Nicholas le Grand, as he called him, which was pre- 
sented to the Eussian Emperor on his visit to Holland 
and England in 1844. One of the suite of the emperor 
told me that, as Tetroode had been the only person in 
the Hague who had sent printed verses to the emperor, 
he would have been splendidly rewarded had not two 
circumstances been against him; namely, in the first 
place, his bad repute ; and, secondly, because ' in some 
of his adulatory apostrophes he made use of the word 
Czar, which, as I learned on that occasion, is extremely 
disliked by the haughty tyrants of the semi-barbarian 
empire. As it was, he received only fifty guilders, the 
smallest gratuity the emperor gave to any person a little 
above a common beggar. 



ITS PBESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 309 

graceful stimulations to Quixotism, ribaldry, 
and vice, the king got at last tired of him, 
and left his letter and his application, his 
prose and his poetry, unheeded. Toon 
Tetroode could not conceive how his friend 
"Willein II. could forsake him ; at all events, 
he would try again, and this time, if pos- 
sible, deliver a letter into the king's own 
hands. Knowing that the king intended 
going to Tilburg, he concealed himself, the 
day that such was to take place, behind 
some trees on the road between the Hague 
and Delft, and, seeing the royal carriage 
advancing, he, with one of his malapert 
jumps, approached the windows, and threw 
his letter on his Majesty's lap. As no 
bystander had seen him perform this tour, he 
thought nobody would know of it, and as, 
moreover, his royal friend had now received 
the epistle himself, he fancied he was en- 
titled to the right of fostering the brightest 
expectations in his mind, until the next 
Saturday, when his letter appeared in extenso 
in the Ooyevaar, and caused its readers to 
roar with laughter. The king had, after 



310 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS , 

perusal, torn the letter into a hundred pieces, 
and, when long out of sight of the trou- 
badour, thrown them into the Delft canal, 
and on its bank. One of the servants who 
accompanied him perceived this, and imme- 
diately wrote a few lines, which he dropped 
before a house they were passing, the prin- 
cipal occupiers of which lost no time in 
collecting the different pieces, which were 
duly picked out and arranged, and the con- 
tents of the letter faithfully rendered by the 
Ooyevaar. 

The publication of the letter startled Wil- 
lem II., and made the hof troubadour more 
furious than ever. And thereupon he also 
started a periodical, published at irregular 
times, whenever the fancy took him and he 
had the means to pay the printer. He 
adorned his pamphlet with the name of 
Ooijemoer, a word fabricated by himself, and 
which is not to be found in any Dutch 
dictionary. Moer is the vulgar expression 
for mother, and vaar for father ; perhaps he 
meant to give my Ooyevaar a Xantippe for 
wife. The publication was a reverberation 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 311 

of its author ; it was mean in the extreme. 
He had the letters composing the names and 
titles of his royal supporters printed in gold ; 
and in the colours of the Dutch gallows 
were printed my name, and sometimes those 
of Tan Gorcuni, De Haas, Dumee, and 
Mingelen. I have only to add, that his 
bombast and balderdash could as little injure 
me in the public opinion, as the well-con- 
structed but too venomous article of the 
refer endaris D'Engelbronner, or the base 
lampoons of Apeker, alias Yan Der Yen ; 
and I sneered as well at the 8 J Graven- 
haagsche Nieuwsbode, as at the Ooyemoer and 
the Gontra-Ooyevaar. 

Meanwhile, and even before I had pro- 
moted Toon Tetroode to the office of trouba- 
dour at the Dutch court, and before I had 
considered his peculiar connection with 
Orange-jSTassau of sufficient importance to 
mention his name in my paper, he had 
twice attacked and assaulted me. The first 
time that such happened was one evening 
when he lay in wait behind the corner of a 
street which I had to pass. He simulta- 



312 Holland: its institutions; 

neously spat in my face, and struck me with 
his fist in the eyes, so quickly and unex- 
pectedly, that I knew only by the peculiar 
jumps of his bandy legs that it was him I 
saw running away at the top of his speed. 
The second time he attacked me was in 
broad daylight. It blew a heavy gale, and 
I was going against the wind, with my hands 
in the pockets of my over-coat, and my head 
downwards, when I received a most violent 
blow on my face with a stick, which made 
the blood spring from my nose. I turned 
round and saw Tetroode gambolling in the 
direction of his house, just once turning his 
face towards me, with his tongue out of his 
mouth. 

The assertion I here give, that I had no 
redress from these diabolical attacks, may 
appear apocryphal ; but it is too true. If it 
requires any proofs, the third attack he made 
upon me, and the circumstances which 
attended and followed that fearful occurrence, 
will amply furnish them. I was returning 
late on a Saturday night from the printing- 
office of Mingelen, when, thoughtfully walk- 



* 

ITS PRESS, KINGS, AXD PRISONS. 313 



ing the street, Tetroode — evidently under 
the influence of liquor, for he never had the 
courage openly to assault me- — came jumping 
from the other side, exclaiming, " Xow I 
shall do for you !" He intended to give me 
a tremendous blow on my head, but I parried 
his cane with one stroke and sent it flying 
into the air. And there he was before me, 
unarmed and unprotected, and I could easily 
have slain, or at least inflicted a severe 
bodily chastisement on the vile wretch. 
Full of temerity, inflated by partial drunken- 
ness, he did not directly run away as he 
was wont to do, but stared impudently in 
my face, as if he would say, " I dare you to 
touch me !" Indeed, I knew very well that 
if I had wounded that man. however slightly 
it might have been, I should that very night 
have been lodged in prison. How agitated 
and excited I was ! but I preserved my self- 
possession, and left him without noticing 
him. Proceeding on my way home, I had 
not advanced a great distance when I saw 
the cane I had thrown out of his hand ; and 
as it had the appearance, by the lamp, of 



314 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS \ 



being mounted with silver, I said to myself : 
u Let me throw this stick after him, in order 
that he may take it home ; perchance that 
little bit of silver may some time or another 
be of use to the unhappy wife and child of 
the base spendthrift." Quietly stooping 
down to take it up, I all at once felt as if a 
tiger had jumped on my back. It was 
Tetroode, who had followed on tiptoe and 
watched his opportunity thus treacherously 
to assail me. At that time I alwavs allowed 
my beard to grow, and it was therefore 
luxuriant and of great length. Grasping 
my whiskers from behind, he hung upon 
them with the whole weight of his body. 
He did more — he repeatedly threw his legs 
with all his force backwards ; and, not satis- 
fied yet, he stretched himself as high as he 
could, and came with his head over my 
shoulders, attempting to bite out my eyes. 
He actually got his teeth in the upper lid of 
my right eye, which he tore asunder, the 
blood streaming copiously down my dress 
and boots. This struggle lasted several 
minutes, during which I alternately pushed 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AXD PRISONS. 315 

him back with my shoulders when he was 
reaching my eyes, or left off pushing when 
the fearful pain of my cheeks compelled me 
to desist. I did not utter a word ; but from 
his throat there escaped, now and then, a 
low. roaring noise, as if of unsatisfied rage. 
Suddenly I felt as if I was under water and 
had my eyes open ; a light yellow and grey 
hue dimmed my sight — the protege of Willem 
II. had his tongue in mv right eve, and, not 
succeeding in biting it out. he attempted to 
suck it out of its socket. When I perceived 
this, a loud cry. not of pain, but of horror, 
involuntarily burst forth from my breast. 
That cry attracted a few persons, and I was 
rescued. On hearing what had happened, a 
crowd soon assembled, and Tetroocle had 
much difficulty in escaping from the clanger 
of receiving a condign punishment at the 
hands of the bystanders. A friend of mine, 
returning home from his J:onif]ruis, arrived on 
the spot when the treacherous coward hadfled. 
He stopped the effusion of blood as much 
as possible, and entreated me, for friend- 
ship's sake, to step for a moment with him 



316 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ) 

into the police-station, and to lay a complaint 
against my assailant. I did so, and subse- 
quently went to a surgeon, who spent a 
great part of the night in adjusting the torn 
pieces of my eyelid, which he entirely 
covered with straps of adhesive plaister ; but 
some weeks elapsed before it was altogether 
well. 

This case produced some ephemeral sen- 
sation, and Tetroode was actually prosecuted 
and sentenced by the District Tribunal in 
the Hague to a month's imprisonment. But 
he did not go to prison any more than the 
bona -roba Emma ; he received his full pardon, 
and shortly afterwards, when the most 
infamous expedients were systematically 
tried to murder me — shortly afterwards, I 
say, he was wallowing in debauchery, paid 
by the extra gratuity he had received for 
having, in so praiseworthy and courageous 
a manner, attacked an ungrateful rebel. 
That a king such as Wfllem II. should shield 
with his royal protection the very scum of 
society, may, after all that has been stated, 
appear very natural ; but, with the intense 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AXD PRISONS. 317 

sorrow and the painful feeling of a Dutch 
patriot, I beg to ask every sensible man, 
every human being not degraded to a beast, 
what he thinks of a nation which abides by 
such monstrosities, nay, which erects statues 
in honour of the royal performer of such 
nameless crimes ? 



318 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



CHAPTEE XV. 

Position of Willem II. — De Thouars — The Haagsche 
Miniatuur Nieuwsbode — The Ontwaahte Leeuw — Eiots 
in Amsterdam, Haeiiem, Leyden, the Hague, and 
Delft — Prosecutions — My two printers and I in 
prison, and the Presses gagged — My former Collabora- 
teurs accused — Dreadful sufferings — My lucubrations 
— How continental tyranny martyrizes its victims. 

The facts and circumstances mentioned in 
the preceding chapter are not calculated to 
give a very flattering idea of Willem II., 
nor are they, perhaps, in accordance with the 
expectations which my general description 
of his person may have originated. I 
rendered, however, nothing but a true ac- 
count of the impression created in my mind 
on my first interview with him, and in sub- 
sequent pages of what had afterwards hap- 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 319 

pened. The better I became acquainted 
with him, the more he changed, and my 
narrative, following the steps of the fallen 
man, bears the reflection of that alteration. 
Stumbling on the slippery road of vice, 
he fell very rapidly indeed, and gradually 
lost the last spark of self-respect. It is very 
probable that he shuddered when thinking 
of the awful situation into which he had 
brought himself ; and it may have been that 
it was the excruciating idea that he was not 
possessed of sufficient self-command to restrain 
himself from base and unnatural offences, 
which sometimes so suddenly contracted his 
nerves, and seemed to paralyze his tongue, 
in the midst of a lengthened conversation. 
Perhaps he had moments of cool and calm 
judgment, when he abhorred his proceedings 
and took a determination to act as an honest 
man, and as a good and righteous king. But 
it was too late. Too much had happened. 
Moreover, the arrangements he had made in 
his palace with regard to his personal attend- 
ance made it difficult to escape the snares 
into which he had entangled himself. He 



320 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 



was surrounded by servants, valets, and 
lacqueys, a great number of whom lie had 
taken into his personal service for abomin- 
able motives, and could not dismiss for fear 
of their becoming dangerous to him, when 
returned to common society.* 

Painful domestic scenes of frequent occur- 
rence now began to contribute to his acute 
grief, and the sunny days of King "Willem 
II. had vanished — he was deeply unhappy. 
What caused him the greatest restlessness 
was his extreme apprehension of publicity ; 
and the mortifying certainty he had that the 
incidents of his life, and the terrible actions 
and misdeeds connected therewith, were 
no secrets to me, unrelentingly tormented 
him. What would he not have sacrificed if 
he had been able to silence my voice, either 
by bribery or by murder ! Eepeatedly had 



* Even his favourite tailor was appointed a valet-de- 
chambre, and was styled Kamerdienaar KleermaJcer, 
valet-tailor — a very eccentric sinecure, which was for 
some time the laughing-stock of the wags in the Hague, 
who called the new Kamerdienaar the royal breeches- 
maker. 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 321 

the commissioner of the Scheveningen police 
— Behr — when I was enjoying recreation in 
that place, entreated me to take into con- 
sideration my own interest as well as the 
amount of sorrow I heaped upon the head of 
the king, whom I had formerly avowed to 
be my benefactor. My health being shattered 
by the passions which raged within me, 
would it not be better, he suggested, to 
accept a substantial royal gift, which he 
knew his majesty would be only too happy 
to make me a present of, and to retire from 
the field of politics and personal strife, 
and live quietly and happily in a milder 
clime, as, for instance, in Italy ? But the 
most splendid offers of royal munificence 
had a contrary effect upon me, and kindled 
my hatred against the rotten system of con- 
tinental royalty, especially as represented 
by Willem II. As regarded murder, my 
friends took care that at least I could not 
be clandestinely despatched. "Whenever I 
was out late at night, they always saw me 
safe home before retiring themselves, and I 
was doubly careful, after the ferocious at- 



322 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

tempt made upon me by the troubadour 
Tetroode, and seldom walked through the 
streets alone. 

The number of subscribers to the Ooyevaar 
was constantly increasing, and there were no 
symptoms wanting to prove that, however 
small in size, its influence with the people 
was powerful. De Haas continued the 
Ooyevaar printed by Dumee ; his paper, 
however, was not even then conducted with 
the care I bestowed upon my articles. He 
had not, as I had, all his time at his disposal, 
for he kept a school, and gave instructions in 
the Latin, French, English, and German lan- 
guages, which fearful offence, after some time, 
opened to him the doors of the prison. It is 
not allowed on the continent to impart 
knowledge to one's fellow-creatures without 
the sanction of the patriarchal governments. 
De Haas was one of the best linguists in the 
Hague ; but his independent spirit induced 
him to refuse to submit to the childish mock- 
examination which a law on public insti- 
tutions, passed in 1806, made obligatory on 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AXD PRISONS. 323 

all persons keeping public schools. As long 
as he did not intermeddle with politics 
nobody interfered with him, but the mastiffs 
of the Hermanclad were at him as soon as he 
made himself conspicuous, and publicly came 
forward with his republican principles.- His 
school was respectably conducted, and there 
was no doubt whatever as to his ability and 
efficiency in teaching. But the justice in the 
Hague did not care about ability or utility 
in that respect ; the only consideration was, 
that he had turned against the Government. 
The law of 1806, although obsolete, was 
brought into requisition, and, of course, De 
Haas was found guilty, and sentenced to 
pay a fine of fifty guilders with costs. 
He obstinately refused to comply with the 
verdict, and preferred going to prison, thus 
openly protesting against the shameful at- 
tempt at extortion. His friends offered to 
pay the money, but could not prevail upon 
him to make use of their kindness. He 
undauntedly crossed the barrier which left 
the world behind him, and to which he 



324 HOLLAND : ITS institutions ; 

did not return until more than three years 
of the prime of his life had been wasted in 
prison. 

I was again alone, and had no regular 
contributor but De Thouars. I had, never- 
theless, as soon as De Haas was appre- 
hended, retaken the management of the 
Ooyevaar printed by Dumee, and had now 
the two journals to care for. At the same 
time, I began to publish two pigmy papers, 
which, on account of their diminutive size, 
were exempt from stamp-duty, and conse- 
quently were sold at a low price, so that every- 
body could purchase them, These little squares 
of paper were called — the one the Haagsche 
Miniatuur - Nieuwsbode, and the other the 
Ontwaakte Leeuw. The first was a carica- 
ture on the Gravenhaagsche Nieuwsbocle, the 
organ of the Government and of the police ; 
the second, the " Awakened Lion," had for its 
object the encouragement and guidance of 
the patriotic spirit which began to manifest 
itself in Holland. Both were printed by 
Dumee, and sold in great numbers. 

The disposition of the populace towards 



ITS PKESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 825 

the Government and the king was remark- 
ably changed since the publication of the 
Ooyevaar ; and even in the formal Hague 
subjects of public interest were now freely- 
discussed, and the acts of the king openly 
censured, in spite of the increased staff of 
mouchards. The king had an opportunity 
of ascertaining how much he was lowered 
in public opinion. One day in the begin- 
ning of September, he rode alone on horse- 
back through the principal streets of the 
Hague, and, with the exception of a police- 
man, a soldier, or a boy, there was nobody 
who cheered or even saluted him, and his pale 
face and sorrowful countenance betrayed how 
much he was affected by that significant 
silence. 

The high price of food, a consequence of 
the unlucky harvest of the past two years, 
caused, at that time, many riots in several 
of the largest towns of Holland, as in Am- 
sterdam, Haerlem, Leyden, Delft, and the 
Hague, in which the lower classes gave vent 
to their animosity against shopkeepers, 
bakers, and speculators on the scarcity of 



326 HOLLAND: ITS INSTITUTIONS \ 

provisions. These riots assumed rather a 
serious aspect in the Hague and in Delft, 
in which latter place plunder was com- 
mitted, and bread forcibly taken away from 
the bakers' premises, which were partly de- 
stroyed. Cannon was planted in that town, 
and the cavalry stationed in the Hague was 
nightly employed to disperse the numerous 
bodies of dissatisfied people in the place of 
the royal residence. 

The newspapers contained as little as pos- 
sible about these uproarious meetings, and 
I carefully avoided showing myself among 
any of the crowds, and seldom left my home, 
in order to remove every pretext for the 
Government mixing me up with these de- 
monstrations. My prudence, however, was 
unavailable against the keen device and 
revenge of the king and of some of the 
members of the Government, by whom I 
was considered to be a most dangerous 
enemy. I could not be bribed ; I could not 
be killed; at least, at whatever price, I 
should, so it was resolved, lose my liberty. 

It was on the morning of the 20th Sep- 



ITS PKESS, KIHGS, AOT) PRISOXS. 327 

tember, 1845, that a policeman, the tallest 
and the strongest in the force of the Hague, 
unceremoniously walked into the house in 
which I occupied apartments, and stationed 
himself within the door of the room where 
I was sitting busily engaged. He impe- 
riously intimated to me that all which was at 
that moment in the room was to be left 
as he had found it, and that nobody was 
to touch any of the papers. I asked him 
whether he was in possession of a writ or 
search-warrant, authorising him to act as 
he had done, and he replied in the nega- 
tive. I told him that he had violated the 
constitution by entering my dwelling with- 
out my permission to do so, but which he 
did not appear to understand. I ordered 
him to leave the room, to which he ob- 
served that he only obeyed the orders of his 
superior. On my inquiring whether that 
superior was not "Waldeck, he indignantly 
declared, — u I do not know who Waldeck 
is ; my superior is Be Heer "Waldeck — Mister 
Waldeck." 

So thus did the first act, which opened this 



S28 HOLLAND: ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 

political monster-process, consist in an attack 
upon individual liberty ; in an infringement 
upon domiciliatory sacredness; in a viola- 
tion of the Dutch constitution, which does 
not allow that the habitations of persons may 
be entered by arbitrary means, unless there 
be a suspicion of detecting them in the per- 
petration of a crime, and, even in that case, 
not without a proper warrant. There were 
four persons in my room when the policeman 
made his appearance ; a child of Dumee and 
an errand-boy of Mingelen, both waiting for 
corrected proofs ; a person who supplied me 
with local news; and a servant of Wil- 
kin II. i^L full livery. I told the latter 
that he had better go at once, because a 
more general invasion of the justice and the 
police might be expected. After some alter- 
cation the policeman allowed him to depart, 
and the other persons followed him in 
succession. A letter from Dirk Donker 
Curtius was delivered to me in the officer's 
presence, and I was destroying it when he 
sprang forward and endeavoured to snatch 
the pieces from me. Two fall hours had 



ITS PEES3, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 329 

this man been with me when Messrs. 
Alsche, Carmeman, and Waldeck came into 
the room. The first-named person was the 
officer of justice at the District Tribunal of 
the Hague, a man who lost the high cha- 
racter he previously possessed by accepting 
that office ; the latter, a heartless hypocrite, 
was a regter commissaris, or judge of inves- 
tigation, belonging to the same tribunal. 
Starving birds of prey could not with more 
eagerness fall upon an unexpected and wel- 
come meal, than those wretched tools of 
despotism fell upon and laid hold of my 
papers. Nothing was left untouched or un- 
searched ; and being somewhat disappointed 
in discovering documents which could impli- 
cate me in the local disturbances, at that 
time, of daily occurrence, they cast all 
my letters and papers into a chest, which 
they sent off to Canneman's office, inform- 
ing me at the same time that they arrested 
me, and that I was to prepare to depart. 
Thereupon Waldeck led me to a vigilante, 
which was waiting at the door of the 
house ; he took his place opposite to me ; 



330 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ] 

the tall policeman acted as groom ; and a 
few minutes afterwards we arrived at the 
town-hall, where I was handed over to the 
charge of several agents of police, with the 
repeated intimation from Waldeck that I was 
not to be allowed to speak to any person 
whatever. Nobody was there to whom I 
could speak, but another commissary of 
police, Eavestyn, who always respected me, 
and who so much disliked his situation that 
he was anxiously waiting to be superan- 
nuated. He did not make any reply to the 
impudent hint of the unconscionable ruffian, 
and left the place without saying a word. 
Waldeok then hurried from the town-hall to 
join the heroes Alsche and Canneman, who 
were proceeding to ransack the houses of my 
publishers. 

An hour elapsed, and Dumee was ushered 
into the apartment, a prisoner. Heart- 
breaking sorrow was depicted in his coun- 
tenance, and I was moved to the uttermost. 
The fact of being arrested myself only 
filled me with that sentiment of intense 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 331 



contempt and indignation which is felt by 
every reasonable and good-minded man on 
seeing a diabolical act committed, no matter 
whether the act inflicts injury upon himself 
or upon others. Personal sufferings never 
strained a tear from my eye, but when I 
saw poor Dumee, the old man of seventy 
years of age, standing as he was there with 
utter despair in his looks, and tears rolling 
down his furrowed cheeks, I lost for an 
instant my steadfastness, and was on the 
point of weeping. Eesuming, however, my 
wonted firmness, I lectured him on his want 
of courage, in which our prosecutors would 
delight, and beseeched him to keep up his 
spirits. Conceive my emotion when the 
unhappy victim sobbed out — " Oh, you do 
not know all that has happened. They 
have not only deprived me of my liberty, 
not only taken away all the journals and 
all my papers, — worse than that — good 
God ! — they have also put seals upon my 
press, and policemen are to watch my house, 
during both day and night, to see that those 



332 HOLLAND! ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 

seals are not broken. My poor wife, my 
poor children ! — starvation and death will 
soon be their doom ! " 

An indescribable thrill of abhorrence 
escaped from my breast. Dumee had been, 
with his eldest son, working very hard for 
the maintenance of the numerous family, 
but had not been able to save anything for 
the future. The press provided for the daily 
wants of his wife and children, and by 
attaching the seals to it, and putting it into 
the hands of policemen, the only means of 
their existence was taken away. The laws 
on the press in Holland do not give the 
justice any right to stop a journal at the 
printing-office, or prevent its circulation, 
whatever may be its contents; much less 
may he forbid or hinder the composing of a 
newspaper. As stated in a previous chapter, 
the author is answerable to the law for what 
he writes, and that is all. In this case, 
however, the press was not, figuratively 
speaking, fettered, but, in the literal sense of 
the word, actually fastened with ropes and 
strings, as if it had been a malefactor, and 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 333 



that cordage thrice-blind tools of despotism 
had soiled with their wax, on which they put 
a degrading impression — the seal of Dutch 
justice. Such happened in the Nether- 
lands, towards the middle of the nineteenth 
century, under the reign of the constitu- 
tional King Willem II., and in the same 
country which, when a republic, was fore- 
most in the rank of all the nations of the 
earth to acknowledge and respect the liberty 
of the press, and from whence so many of 
her productions, in different languages, spread 
civilization and enlightenment over all the 
inhabited parts of the world. 

Never, I believe, was a manufactory or 
foundry put under seal on account of its 
having produced a pistol or a gun, which, in 
the hand of a regicide, cut short the days of 
a tyrant ; but the despicable imps of Dutch 
justice sealed, and prevented a printing 
establishment from continuing the publica- 
tion of, a paper which could have been 
printed on any other press as well as on 
that of poor Dumee, just as deadly instru- 
ments may be cast or manufactured in one 



334 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS \ 

foundry as well as in another. The old man 
was right in surmising that such an act had 
been perpetrated with a view to starve his 
family, and with the intention to let them 
suffer as well as himself for his havnig been 
the publisher of the Ooijevaar, and other 
small papers of republican tendency. I en- 
deavoured to tranquillize the downcast vic- 
tim of unscrupulous despotism, and at last 
succeeded in restoring his calmness of mind. 

Mingelen appeared, escorted as Dumee 
had been. Grasping my hand he assured 
me that he would endeavour to be as cou- 
rageous as I was. " You shall have no rea- 
son to be ashamed of me," he exclaimed. 
The three worthies, Alsche, Canneman, and 
Waldeck, had entered his house just at the 
time when the Ooyevaar was going to press, 
and they had actually arrested the " forme" 
of the paper and taken it from the press to 
the town-hall, together with a great por- 
, tion of the type, books, and paper belonging 
to his printing establishment.* 

* Of course not a single pnce of paper was found 
either at my house or at those of Dumee and Miugelen, 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AXD PRISONS. 335 

The day was already drawing to a close, 
and still we had not received an acte cV 'ac- 
cusation , or order of arrest. It was a new 
violation of the law to keep ns prisoners 
without any such document. I could, how- 
ever, easily guess that the pretext on which 
our arrest had taken place could be found 
in the alleged authority of the articles 91 
and 97 of the penal code, and I communi- 
cated such to my two publishers. I also 
told them that those stipulations of the law 
threatened with death, but that they had 
not to fear such a result, because the pro- 
ceedings against us were nothing but a 
means of putting us out of the way, and 
making us harmless, for the time being. 

It was evening, when at length an old 
deurwaarder came to us, and, with much less 
concern than a careless schoolboy would 
exhibit in saying his lesson, muttered the 

which could in any way compromise or criminate ns. 
The most important document for those bloodhounds of 
tyranny appeared to be the lists of our subscribers, for 
they eagerly took hold of them, and kept them separate. 
All the persons named in those lists were from that mo- 
ment " marked men." 



336 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS \ 



order which the raadkamer of the District 
Tribunal had issued for our arrest. I had 
listened without any peculiar emotion to the 
reading of the precious document, but a 
storm of indignation arose within me when 
I heard that the justice had made us the 
accomplices not only of the three or four 
wretches who had been arrested for partici- 
pating in the disturbances of the Hague, 
but also of the dozen destitute vagrants who 
had committed theft and plunder at Delft. I 
at once conceived the diabolical intent of 
that far-sought accusation. I was certain 
that it was to keep us for months locked up 
and separated from our friends and relatives. 
I saw that the appetite of the revenge of my 
enemies was not to be satiated by imprisoning 
us on account of an alleged political offence, 
but that we had to be placed on a level with 
the starving wretches, and made the accom- 
plices of these poor men, whose faces we 
had never seen before. Political prisoners 
only we should not be, we should also be 
made the associates of thieves and plun- 
derers. Yes ! thus ran the act of accusation 



ITS PBESS, KIXGS, AND PRISONS. 337 

of the tribunal, if it could not be proved that 
we were amenable according to articles 91 and 
97 of the penal code, such we should be in 
respect of article 440, by which every per- 
son guilty of public plunder is liable to 
a punishment of from five to fifteen years' 
imprisonment with hard labour. The argu- 
ment was, that if I had not written in an 
exciting style, and Dumee and Mingelen 
had not printed and circulated that which I 
wrote, the persons in the Hague and Delft, 
would, probably, never have thought of riot 
and plunder. How would you feel, reader, if 
you saw yourself accused in that way, and 
had never been abetting devastation, when 
you had never seen or even been aware of 
the existence of those plunderers, and when 
the latter did not know you, nor had ever 
read anything written by you ? 

Taking into consideration the prospects 
before us, and feeling that the prison would 
be fatal to my publishers, Dumee being a 
weak old man, and Mingelen suffering from 
asthma, I thought I might try whether 
there was no possibility of restoring our- 



338 Holland: its institutions; 

selves to liberty, and saving them from the 
sufferings that were in store, by promising 
that I would voluntarily lay down the pen, 
and banish myself from the country. I 
proposed this to Waldeck, who wrote a note 
and sent it by his own son to D'Engel- 
bronner, the reply to which was that the 
legal proceedings must take their course. 

Large crowds of people had undoubtedly 
surrounded the town-hall from the time it 
became generally known that we had been 
arrested, for our removal was delayed till 
eight o'clock, when a vehicle arrived, into 
which we were pushed together, the offi- 
cious Waldeck and the deurwaarder keeping 
us company. The carriage had been brought 
up to the back door of the town-hall, but 
even there we saw a large concourse of 
people, who shouted, and loudly asked us, 
" "What will they do with you ? Whither 
are you going ? We must know where they 
will take you." " To prison," I exclaimed, 
and away we went. Although we were 
hurrying at full speed to the house of deten- 
tion, still hundreds followed the coach, and 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 339 

on its arrival at our future abode, we again 
found an innumerable multitude assembled 
on the spot. Two policemen, who had been 
standing behind the vehicle as grooms, im- 
mediately jumped from their seats, and 
opened the carriage. The door of the 
prison was opened at the same moment, and 
we were led within its dreary walls. The 
governor of the gaol, the turnkey, and the 
warders were in attendance. I bade Dum.ee 
and Mingelen farewell, pressed them by the 
hand, and prayed of the former, whose eyes 
were again filled with tears, to keep up his 
spirits. 

Prepared for the worst, I did not wonder 
when I was taken to the most gloomy cell 
in the prison. It was the cachot where the 
soldiers who had committed very grave 
offences were occasionally locked up— the 
longest period being for eight days. Ush- 
ered into that awful place, I at once saw 
how horrid it was, but did not utter a single 
remark. I requested the warder to put 
down my hammock, and to bring me some 
coffee, which, by particular favour, I 

z2 



340 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

received half an hour afterwards. Although 
there was a strong draught in that hole, the 
stench was nearly suffocating. The first 
was created by some five panes of glass in 
the window being broken, and the cell being 
opposite the gate of the prison; the latter, 
as I afterwards learned, by the closet haying 
been stopped up some days previously, and 
the excrements of the last occupier of my 
cell — a drummer — and six prisoners above 
me, having been, and were daily allowed to 
accumulate there. Those six prisoners had 
evidently received hints or promises from 
Waldeek, for not long after I had entered 
the cell they commenced to make a fearful 
noise, which painfully affected my head. 
With wooden shoes on their feet they were 
dancing together, and the plank ceiling 
resounded with the most sickening jolts, 
which made my nerves tremble. I threw 
myself down on the straw mattress, and, 
as I had a light, they perceived that I had 
done so through little holes bored in the 
planks which separated them from me, and 
poured a quantity of water — I need not say 



ITS PRESS, KIXGS, AND PRISONS. 341 

of what description — upon me, which made 
me wet and filthy. Then drawing the 
drenched and stinking straw to the corner 
next the door, I again stretched my tired 
limbs upon it, abiding with resignation the 
horrors of such a sleepless night. The clock 
struck ten, when a warder ordered me to 
put out my light, and there I lay, enveloped 
in darkness, draught, and stench. How 
great and how sudden was the transition from 
the busiest life in the world, with all its 
conveniences and requirements within my 
reach, to the solitary confinement in a dreary 
cell, with no accommodation but a few hand- 
fuls of nasty straw ! But the other day and 
my occupations and recreations scarcely left 
me time for repose, and at the hour when I 
was now shivering in a nauseous den, I was 
accustomed to enjoy myself in a circle of 
friends, with every sort of comfort at my 
command. No sleep came to my eyes to 
make me insensible to the horrors of my 
situation. I was haunted by the thought 
that I had involuntarily caused my publishers 
to be deprived of their liberty, and the con- 



342 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 

templation of my own future, darker than 
night itself, overwhelmed at intervals my 
moral courage. How likely was it not that 
I should die after a series of mental and 
bodily sufferings ; that my last breath should 
be spent within prison walls, and in the 
atmosphere of crime ? It was certain that 
I could not survive many weeks in the hole 
where I now lay, and I had every reason 
to fear that my corpse only would leave it. 
It required all the power of philosophy, and 
my confidence in God, to calm my excited 
mind. An intense intermittent fever attacked 
me, and heightened my sufferings. . . . 
Later in that dreadful night I agreed with 
myself to acquiesce without murmur to all 
that might happen, to control my emotions 
as much as possible, and passively to submit 
to the indignities of which I should be the 
object. Fortunately for me, I had strength 
enough to carry that resolution into effect. 
I owe the preservation of my life to it. 

At ten o'clock the next morning a warder 
opened the door of my cell, and ordered 
me to come with him to the office of the 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 343 

governor, to have my name, with a descrip- 
tion of my person, put down in a book in 
which every prisoner — except debtors — was 
registered, no matter for what reason he was 
incarcerated. From that office I was taken 
to the room of Canneman, who had just 
arrived to effect the usual interrogation. I 
complained of the monstrosity of the accusa- 
tion, and asked him how we could be con- 
sidered as accomplices of men whom we had 
never seen in our lives, and who were nearly 
all arrested and imprisoned in Delft ? He 
replied that not he, but the raadkamer of the 
tribunal, accused me, and that, as regarded 
complicity, should there be no real, there 
could be moral complicity in the case; the 
perpetrators of the plunders could have 
found something in my newspapers to 
incite them to commit themselves as they 
had done. "You are unable," I said, 
" to point me out a line, or even a word,^ 
in which I urged on the inhabitants to 
plunder ; I have done exactly the contrary." 
And the answer was a shrinking up of the 
shoulders and a dry, "The tribunal must 



344 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

decide that." "At all events/' continued 
I, " allow me to request that a confrontation 
between those persons and myself should 
take place at the earliest opportunity." " I 
shall at once bring your request before the 
tribunal," he replied, and left me waiting a 
yiar for that confrontation, when it was 
proved that not one of the poor wretches, 
who for the greater part could neither read 
nor write, ever had seen the newspapers I 
had written. 

I had inhaled an unsuffocatino; air so long 
as I was in the room of the judge Canneman, 
and hence felt th.3 terrible smell so much the 
more on returning to my cell. I lay down 
again on my miserable couch, and felt very 
sickly. In the morning a piece of dry bread 
with water was brought to the hole ; when 
I came back I found a mixture of some 
vegetables, grout, and water, but I did not 
touch that food, neither the scantv meal 
that was put down in my cell at four o'clock. 
I lay clown all the day on the straw, and 
had nothing tut a cup of coffee, which I was 
allowed to drink by paying for it. I heard 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 345 

nothing from Dumee or Mingelen, nor from 
my friends outside the prison, which made 
me conclude that all access and communica- 
tion was refused, and that I was put an 
secret. The next day — Sunday — slowly 
crept onwards, and so did the night. I had 
not undressed myself since my arrival in 
prison, nor did I do anything but lie down 
on the straw, or partake of anything but 
coffee. Many times had I fainted and been 
unconscious for more than half an hour 
together, and nearly choked by the nau- 
seating damp. The exhalation of putrition 
was growing more intense as the wind 
abated, and no proper ventilation could take 
place in calm weather, as a high wall stood 
at a very small distance from my cell, de- 
priving me at the same time of all daylight. 
On Monday morning the governor of the 
prison came to my door, and inquired if I 
was unwell, and whether I had any com- 
plaints to make. I explained to him briefly 
what sort of den it was into which he had 
locked me, and that I wondered how he 
could order my confinement in such a hole, 



346 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

into which he certainly would not throw a 
burglar or a vagabond. " I was ordered to 
put you here," was the reply, "but seeing 
how much you have suffered in these two 
or three days only, I shall try to get a better 
apartment for you, and meanwhile give my 
orders that the noise with which the men in 
the cell above continually annoy you, be put 
a stop to." He subsequently spoke of sub- 
jects of another kind; but, suspecting that he 
tried to get answers from me in order to be 
able to report them to my prosecutors, I 
declined entering into conversation with 
him and treated him rather cavalierly. For 
this I was afterwards sorry, when I found 
that he was a straightforward, honest, noble, 
and kindhearted man, who did more than I 
could expect to alleviate the acuteness of my 
sufferings. 

I had no food and only coffee on Monday, 
the fourth day of my imprisonment. After 
having again lain down all day and night, 
I had, on the Tuesday morning, the great 
pleasure of receiving from my friends out 
of doors a quantity of choice eatables and 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 347 

wine, which. Henrichs, the governor, himself 
handed to me. Hunger now got the better 
of the smell, and I enjoyed, for the first 
time since the previous Thursday, a good 
and hearty dinner. The sun was also shin- 
ing during that day, which gave me a couple 
of hours of good twilight, of which I profited 
to write a letter to Behr, the Commissary of 
Police in Scheveningen, informing him that 
I would still accept his proposal and go to 
Italy, or any other proposition of that kind, if 
the doors of the prison were at once thrown 
open to Dumee, Mingelen, and myself. 
Although I had no intention of leaving the 
country, I thought myself justified in 
making any attempt likely to extricate me 
from my awful and dangerous position. 

Behr came two days afterwards. On 
entering the room where he was waiting 
for me, he could not help being astonished 
at the great difference in my appearance. 
Only a week had elapsed since I had been 
despotically deprived of my liberty, but 
during that week I had endured so much, 
that it was as if the history of a year of 



348 HOLLAND I ITS INSTITUTIONS * 

wretchedness had been written on my 
features. After some insignificant preamble, 
Behr told me that he was authorised to 
inform me that every amelioration should 
be afforded me in my lot if I would make 
revelations. I concealed the painful impres- 
sion that word caused me, and asked him 
what revelations he had in view. "The 
Government/' he said, " desires not so much 
to know who are your political friends, as 
to have the names of those persons who 
communicated to you so many facts which 
for ever should have remained secret." 
" And could you," replied I, disdainfully, 
" believe for a moment that, to whatever 
torture you may expose me, I should betray 
those men who put an unlimited confidence 
in me?" On seeing me annoyed by such 
a degrading offer, he did not repeat it or put 
it in any other form. Having executed his 
mission as a tool of his despotic masters, 
he now spoke to me as a friend. He con- 
demned in the strongest terms of disapproba- 
tion that I had been so barbarously dealt 
with, and promised me faithfully not to 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 349 



spare any trouble to get me removed from 
that hideous cachot, the confinement in 
which had already so severely told upon me. 

On Wednesday, the 8th October, I was 
removed from the horrid abode.* My new 
cell was No. 12, a convenient and spacious 
room, where I had fresh air and bright 
sunlight, and even a view of the Prinsengracht. 
How happy I felt at that alteration in my 
situation no pen can describe. I, however, 
concealed my joy, for I could perceive that, 
although it was reluctantly granted that I 
was moved from that dreary hole, which 
perhaps would too soon have killed me, it 
was calculated that I should mentally be 
more excited in my new, good cell, than 



* It did look rather strange that the cause of the 
horrid smell, which at last commenced to spread from 
my cell through the whole prison, was not taken away 
before it was decided that I should be removed. Scaven- 
gers were then ordered to make a search, and they found 
that a wooden bowl obstructed the drainage, and hin- 
dered the ordure from passing through. One of the 
warders very positively assured me that the bowl had 
belonged to the drummer, who certainly must have 
thrown it in the privy on the day of his release. 



350 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

in the filthy cachot.* The room in which I 
now found myself had for some time been 
purposely unoccupied, and served as a store- 
room, on account of the last occupant having 
left it, not to return to his friends and 
relations, nor to be removed to another cell 
or prison, but to be taken to the gallows and 
hung. That late occupant was a man of 
the name of Stenis, formerly hotel and stable 
keeper in Utrecht, who was publicly ex- 
ecuted in the autumn of 1844, on the great 
market-place in the Hague. He had been 
a criminal of the most abominable character. 
For the sake of a few thousand guilders, 
the possession of which he coveted, he had 
sent to his uncle, who lived on the very 
same Prinsengracht on the Hague where he 
was afterwards prisoner, some poisoned 
pastry, in the shape of a present of affection, 
which the latter gladly accepted, consumed, 
and of which he died after a painful agony; 

* The minute description one of the warders gave me 
of the life of the last inhabitant of that cell, easily 
made me guess to what intent that man had been in- 
structed to do so. 



ITS PBESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 351 

his wife, who had also partaken of the 
present, having a hair-breadth escape, and 
recovering only after a serious illness. 

But it did not mentally affect me that 
I was sitting on the same seat where he 
had been sitting ; the idea that I took my 
dinner from the same table as he had done, 
and that I breathed the air in the same 
space where he had been raving over his 
pending fate during the last days of his 
life, left me undisturbed. Neither did I 
dream of gallows or hangman, when I slept 
in the same bed in which had been stretched 
the limbs that were doomed to dangle be- 
tween heaven and earth. On the contrary, 
I liked to muse upon the difference between 
him and me, and the singular contrasts it 
was suggestive of. In that cell lived, a year 
before, a murderer, who, prompted by his 
avarice, perpetrated the most heinous crime ; 
an assassin, poisoning for money's sake his 
uncle and his friend, who by his will had 
bequeathed his property to him ; and in 
the same room now breathed one who was 
guiltless of any real crime; who, scorning 



352 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS \ 

money, had sacrificed his own prospects 
and expectations, not to serve his uncle, his 
relatives, or himself, but to serve all his 
compatriots. And the latter was content, 
was happy in that apartment — so much 
worse than a murderer had he been treated 
in the beginning of his incarceration. 

De Haas had entered the prison before 
any of the meal riots or bread disturbances 
had taken place, and he never gratuitously 
gave it as his opinion or advice that plunder 
was a good thing. Nevertheless, a few 
days after my printers and I had been cap- 
tured, Willem II., Yan Hall, and Co., or- 
dered that he should be accused in the same 
manner as ourselves, and of course the will- 
ing tools, under the pretext of acting for 
the benefit of justice, obeyed their paymas- 
ters. He was also now preventively incar- 
cerated on a capital charge. This was done, 
as I said, after Dumee, Mingelen, and I had 
been arrested, for the reason that De Haas 
had declared his intention to pay the school- 
master's fine, which would have set him at 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 353 

large, and given him an opportunity of advo- 
cating the liberation of his friends. 

With respect to Yan Goreum, he had been 
for the last four months at least in Belgium, 
and he had heartily joined his friends in Brus- 
sels in singing the Brabanconne, when the 
populace in the towns of South Holland were 
screaming for bread. He gave a proof of his 
faithfulness by returning to the Hague as 
soon as he heard what had happened, and he 
addressed himself at once to the govern- 
ment, claiming our manumission, adding 
thereto that, if his request were not complied 
with, he would publish a paper himself to 
defend our cause. No notice was taken 
of his expostulation, and he kept his word ; 
he began to publish a weekly newspaper 
called De Vaderlander. He commenced, for 
after the first number had appeared he was 
also arrested, locked up in the same prison, 
and accused m the same way as we had 
been ; namely, of being an accomplice in the 
intended revolution, or perpetrated plunder. 
Again I must say that the Dutch laws or- 

2 a 



354 HOLLAND I ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 

dain that nobody can be prosecuted for any- 
thing he has caused to be published, after 
more than three months have elapsed with- 
out the Justice taking notice of it. True 
enough he had been much longer than three 
months without any connection with the 
press in Holland, but the Justice in the 
Hague was too liberal to look at dates. 

Consequently we were all imprisoned; 
we all inhaled the miasma of the dungeon, 
and Willem II. breathed more freely. I 
scarcely need mention that I suffered more 
than my friends. I was at the head of 
a patriotic combination, and as such it was 
of importance that I should be destroyed. 
It happened one day that Waldeck visited 
the prison, as was his wont during the first 
period of our incarceration, and seeing that 
it made no impression upon me that I slept 
under the same blankets as the executed 
Stenis, and that the room after all was not 
a bad one, he gave notice thereof in the 
proper quarter, and it was decided that I 
should be again removed. They then 
opened for me cell Mo. 10, a place occa- 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 355 

sionally used, as was my first hole, for the 
imprisonment of soldiers punished for a few 
days' cachot. That cell was above the prison 
kitchen, in which all the meals for the popu- 
lation of the establishment were prepared. 
The flame of the huge fire under me passed 
through the chimney of my room, and made 
the stones burning hot. In fact, so high was 
the temperature in my new lodging, that it 
was a cell and a hot house at the same time ; 
and, although it was now in November and 
December, hundreds of flies buzzed around 
me day and night. My constitution suffered 
by that sudden change, so much the more 
as there was no ventilation whatever in 
the room, and I was never taken out for 
an airing. The greatest offenders had their 
regular hours of promenade in the yards of 
the gaol; even my co-accused editors and 
publishers were daily walking in the open, 
fresh air, — but I had not a breath of it. 
I had here, however, an advantage which 
made that cell preferable to the others. De 
,Haas was, with five other persons of all 
descriptions, locked up in the room above 

2 a 2 



356 HOLLAND! ITS INSTITUTIONS ; 

me, and lie, of course, took care that I 
should not suffer from that dreadful, hollow, 
brain-shaking noise which, in the first cachot, 
had very nearly driven me to madness. A 
little hole in the floor near the window was 
spacious enough to give passage to a small 
object, or a roll of paper, and when I 
climbed to the top of the double iron bars 
before my window, I could reach that hole 
and receive or deliver all sorts of messages. 
In that way I had soon established a regular 
correspondence with De Haas, and through 
him with my fellow-sufferers. 

I had not been an inhabitant of that cell 
very long when the cook of the gaol, Wichers, 
also a prisoner, but enjoying many liberties, 
now and then made his appearance upstairs 
to my room. I induced him to bring me 
every evening a lamp filled with oil, and 
from that time I changed night into day. 
Very seldom did the inspectors or even the 
governor of the gaol look in upon me, and 
when they intended to pay a general visit to 
all the cells, the cook or one of the warders 
came to awake me, lest I should be found in 



ITS PKESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 357 

my bed during day-time, which was against 
the prison regulations. Every evening I 
lighted my lamp so soon as I heard that the 
turnkey and warders had retired, and kept 
it burning all night, going to bed when 
the inhabitants of the gaol left their ham- 
mocks. 

Those sleepless nights have been the 
happiest in .my life. There, in that den, in 
that hothouse, in the corner of the gaol 
of the Hague, while every one was resting, 
and even crime enjoyed unconscious sleep, 
the loftiest conceptions the human mind can 
embrace balsamed my existence. There I con- 
ceived thoughts new and strange, not slowly 
originating from a comparison of different 
ideas, but virgin thoughts — more than con- 
ceptions or unconnected inspirations — spring- 
ing forth from those lasting expansions of 
the soul, which give the mortal being the 
innate conviction that he is immortal. There, 
in the midst of the night, the broad stream 
of human life unrolled its agitated sheets 
silently before me, not flowing between 
their natural bounds, according to the laws 



358 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS J 

of Nature's Lord, but roaring and rushing 
against the banks of depraved human con- 
ventions ; between the birth of an imperial 
prince and the gallows-death of a wretched 
woman ; between a scaffold and a throne ; 
between a hangman and a king. There I 
dissected the fabric of human society, and 
endeavoured to count, on the one side, their 
numerous columns of imposition, of bigotry, 
of falsehood, and blasphemous absurdities 
— called acts of faith — and, on the other 
hand, their numberless pillars of prejudices, 
instilled into the human mind at a time 
when blooming youth should have received 
those soft and godly impressions which a 
contemplation of kind nature creates in the 
pure heart. There I would lose myself in 
mental calculations as to what a revolution 
it might bring among mankind, if a general 
belief arose that the atmosphere which sur- 
rounds our earthly abode, with all its great, 
mysterious, and unknown powers, is to the 
germ of our soul what the womb of a mother 
is for the embryo of our body, and that 
proper spiritual nourishment is required to 



ITS PRESS, KINGS, AND PRISONS. 359 

form the spiritual essence of immortality, as 
well as material nourishment is wanted to 
develope the bud of the human frame. 

There — but no ! .... I shall only 
say that I was penetrated with gratitude, 
and that nightly : not my prayer, for I never 
pray to Him, but my fervent thanks were 
addressed to the Almighty. 

As regarded the gloomy-looking future, 
I did not much dwell upon it. "When I did, 
I expected that I had, at all events, already 
experienced the worst. I had not the 
slightest apprehension of what I afterwards 
knew, and that was : — 

The winter from 1845 to 1846 did not com- 
mence to be severe before the latter part of 
January, and it had been agreed upon by 
my prosecutors that I should be the tenant 
of the hot house as long as the weather 
was not very cold. The duration of 
my occupying that cell depended upon the 
state of the thermometer. I was put there 
with the intent that my body should be 
emaciated, and its fluids dried up, and that 
I should be dragged — that work accom- 



360 HOLLAND : ITS INSTITUTIONS. 

plished — chained, handcuffed, faint, weary, 
and sickly, along the icy coast of the Zuyder 
Zee. And so I was taken or carried from 
one prison to the other, till the last spark of 
life appeared to quit me, and a vagrant had 
to be appointed to watch me during the 
night, in order that the person in whose 
custody I was at that time should be able to 
fill up his morning report by stating the 
hour when I had died. 



J. F. Hope, IG, Great Marlborough Street 



1 



